Silence came over the park as the Cadillac stopped and, instead of delivering only Belle to the family party, Rumpelstiltskin stepped down and escorted his wife to the group.
Emma and her parents stared at him for a long moment, before remembering their courtesies.
Privately, Rumpelstiltskin awarded the former shepherd with the least awkward smile.
"I'm sorry we're late," Belle chirped from his side, her arm threaded through his. "We had a last minute delay."
It would have taken a second to send the annoying wolf back to her grandmother, but Belle was fond of Ruby.
"It's all right." David's grin even seemed genuine. "Glad the two of you could make it this time!"
The shepherd's armed arched in suspicious camaraderie. The pinch near his elbow reminded Rumpelstiltskin to accept the gesture.
Similar intervention from Snow diverted the effusive slap on his shoulder into an offer for a hand shake.
Rumpelstiltskin even managed not to sneer as he shook back.
"Auntie Belle!" Henry's voice cut in as he ran across the park.
"Papa. You made it!"
Bae rushed closer, a football in hand and quickly passing his son.
Rumpelstiltskin felt himself relax. He had invested a whole world into their reunion. Of course he would spend a few hours if Baelfire requested his presence.
"Are you actually wearing that?" Henry interrupted his thoughts, taking him in with youthful horror. "This is a picnic!"
The adults chuckled, some more nervously than others.
Baelfire rolled his eyes and cuffed the boy's head playfully. "Just be glad he's here this time," he said. Rumpelstiltskin blinked, unaware he would have been welcomed to previous family meetings. Belle had tried to tell him so, but Baelfire hadn't brought it up until dinner last night.
While he mulled that over, Baelfire was coming into his personal space. "Glad you could make it." He moved in in for a quick hug. Him, Rumpelstiltskin gladly embraced back. Bae stepped away, and looked down at his son with an exasperated smile. "Sorry about that, Papa. Kid's had nowhere to learn subtlety. It's a miracle people still like him."
"Hey!" the boy complained.
The adults laughed a little, before Emma tugged Henry closer to her. "Don't mind your dad," she said loudly. "He once told a police officer he had an ugly face."
"Guilty." Bae shrugged, then put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Sorry, kid. You're doomed."
Rumpelstiltskin smiled at the picture of them. He had barely dared to dream that Baelfire would forgive him one day. To be allowed to see his son become a father...
Sadly, other people broke the moment.
"Henry is right, though." David was saying, eyeing him from collar to leather shoes. "You'll get that nice suit wrinkled, Gold."
Rumpelstiltskin hid a sigh. A glance to his side was no reprieve, as Belle was giving him a knowing look.
"Fine," he grumbled. "You win."
Everyone stepped back at the sudden cloud of magic that enveloped him.
Not Belle, of course. Never her. She only nodded in approval at the result.
If her cheeks flushed a little at his choice of attire, Rumpelstiltskin was smart enough to save that knowledge for later.
"Will this do?" He directed the question to his grandson.
Bae's boy gave him a thumbs up before latching onto his wrist and tugging him along.
Rumpelstiltskin allowed the manhandling in good humor. At his side, Belle was pulled along, already asking questions about Henry's plans.
Behind the trio, Neal stared at Emma. Emma managed to shake off the unexpected reaction to Gold's change of wardrobe in time to see Neal's look of horror.
"Never ever tell me what just crossed your mind," he begged.
Emma ruthlessly forced down a blush. She hadn't expected the result of a pair of jeans on the man, all right? "I have no idea what you're talking about," she grit out, glaring Neal into forgetting the whole thing.
Neal gladly complied.
Meanwhile, David put an arm around his wife's waist. "Remember how Belle used to act so mysterious when we asked why she stayed in the Dark Castle?"
In which the last of the curse is swept away and Zelena gets what’s coming to her.
-
This chapter took me sooo loooonnggg to write. Partly because of writing other things, partly because I’m struggling to focus during the lockdown. Normally I spend at least one afternoon a week writing at a local coffee shop but of course that’s not possible right now and it’s wreaking a bit of havoc with my productivity.
BUT! There is now a chapter count for this story! It will be 18 chapters in total, this one and a final one to wrap things up. Thanks to everyone who’s stuck with it for the past *gulp* more than a year. I love you all, but especially @thisonesatellite @ohmightydevviepuu and @katie-dub whose enthusiasm and support means the world to me ❤️❤️❤️
-
SUMMARY: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time Emma is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from Henry and anyone else who might help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Killian have the ability to share their dreams, and are working together in secret to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from a new and dangerous foe.
Rating: M
AO3
-
The Magic:
Snow White had heard the expression ‘earth-shattering orgasm’ before, of course she had, but like any sensible woman with a realistic perspective on men and their limitations, she’d never taken the phrase literally.
Until now.
Now she lay sprawled and trembling in her once-lonely bed, panting harshly wondering if the world had always spun so damned fast. She chuckled breathlessly against the sweat-slicked skin of David’s shoulder.
“Damn, Charming, you’ve always been good but I’ve never felt the earth move before,” she teased.
David rolled over and grinned at her, his hand trailing down her side and over her hip. “What can I say? It’s been a long time and I was highly motivated.” He leaned in to nuzzle her neck as his words echoed through her mind.
It’s been a long time… a long time… long time…
Snow gasped as realisation struck, just as David pulled back with a start and she could see he understood as well. “The curse,” she exclaimed. “Is it broken?”
“I think it is,” he replied. “I remember…” His eyes filled with regret and he pulled her close again. “Snow. I remember.”
Snow wrapped her arms around him and they held each other in silence for a moment, far too tightly for comfort and still not nearly tight enough as their cursed memories washed over them. Everything that had happened over the past year, the wretchedness of it, living together and feeling nothing for each other. It should have been impossible, Snow thought, they were True Love. She could certainly feel her love for him now, surging up almost indignantly as if it resented having gone un-felt for so long, and yet she remembered looking at him with pure indifference. She shuddered and David’s arms tightened still further. She knew he was wondering the same thing she was. Who, what, could possibly have done this to them?
She tried to sort through the memories, of Regina—as their maid, of all unbelievable things—and Zelena—wait, who exactly was Zelena?—and Emma, and—
“Emma!” she cried, jerking her head back so abruptly it narrowly missed a collision with David’s chin. “David, she’s here in Storybrooke! How is she here?”
“I was just wondering that,” he said grimly. “What do you say we go find out?”
~
“We should go to Granny’s,” suggested Henry. “That’s where everyone went when the last curse broke. I bet they’ll go there again.”
“Good thinking.” Emma nodded in agreement but Killian shook his head.
“What about Zelena?” he asked. “Do we know how the curse breaking will affect her? Perhaps we should stop by the sheriff’s station first.”
“I think Zelena will be okay in her cell for a bit longer,” Emma replied. “She’s still behind that shielding spell I put around her.”
“Nevertheless I’d feel better if we checked,” said Killian. “Not that I don’t have every faith in you, Swan, but we should err on the side of caution. Zelena is nothing if not unpredictable.”
“Hmmm, yeah that is a point. And she has been one step ahead of us for most of this.” Emma’s expression turned thoughtful. “Okay, we can go to the sheriff’s station, but I’d actually kind of like to go find my parents first.” She shrugged. “Just to see them, you know. Before we get caught up with the rest of the town.”
Killian smiled. “Of course, love.”
“And, um, actually, can I go to Regina’s?” asked Henry. “I want to make sure she’s okay, and I can tell her about the plan to meet at Granny’s.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” said Emma. “The rest of us can go to my parents—”
“It might be better if you did that without me,” Killian interjected. “Your father and I were still on rather shaky terms when I saw him last and my presence with you would likely raise some questions best kept for later.”
Neal snorted, then shrugged when the other three glared at him. “What? He’s not wrong.”
“So where will you go?” Emma asked.
“I was thinking I could stop at the sheriff’s station by myself. If Zelena is as secure as you think then you needn’t come along unless you wish to. I can check on her quickly then head to Granny’s and meet you there.”
“Okay, that sounds like a good plan,” said Emma. “Henry goes to get Regina—”
“And Robin, they have a date tonight so he should be with her.” Henry’s eyes lit up. “I bet Robin Hood will be useful in—well, in whatever comes now.”
“Yeah, okay, so Henry goes to get Regina and Robin while I go to find my parents, and Killian will go to the station to check on Zelena. We’ll meet back at Granny’s as soon as possible. Everyone okay with that?” They all nodded except Neal, who still stood in the corner with his arms crossed. Emma fixed him with a glare and he scowled in reply. “Neal?” she said in a warning tone. “What about you?”
Neal swept the room with his scowl and shrugged again. “I’ll go with Hook,” he said. “Check on Zelena then meet you at Granny’s.”
“Really?” Emma demanded. “That’s what you want to do?”
“Hey don’t forget I worked for Zelena under the curse. I saw what she’s capable of, and that was without magic. If she’s even a little bit free then trust me, the pirate’s gonna need backup.”
Emma looked questioningly at Killian. “I wouldn’t mind some backup, actually,” he said.
“And you’re sure you’ll—be okay?” Emma asked, turning to Neal again.
“If you’re asking can I go half an hour without punching your husband, yeah I can,” he replied with a sneer. “But those questions your parents are gonna have? I’ve got them too. Just as long as both of you remember that.”
“Once we’re sure the town’s safe we will tell all of you everything,” Emma assured him. “We promise. Just behave yourselves until then. Both of you.”
Killian and Neal exchanged a long look, then nodded stiffly to each other.
“Fine by me,” said Neal.
“Aye, and me.” Killian tightened the arm that still rested around Emma’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Be careful, love,” he murmured in her ear. “We’ll see you at Granny’s.”
Emma tightened her hold around his waist and quickly checked the protection spells around him. They were still firmly in place, and as strong as ever. Even if she somehow managed to gain control of the curse magic, there was no way Zelena could use it to harm Killian. Emma drew a deep breath and told herself to relax. Killian was safe, thoroughly protected, and there was no reason for him to know that she’d never let him go alone to face Zelena unless she was certain of that.
She gave him a final squeeze and then released him, stepping back and gathering her magic.
“Everyone ready?” she asked.
“Just one last thing.” Killian disappeared into their bedroom and returned a moment later, tightening the straps of the brace that held his hook.
“Just in case,” he said, as he tugged the sleeve of his sweater down over it and Emma nodded. “Ready when you are, love.”
She poofed Henry first, sending him straight to the living room of the loft. Killian and Neal she directed to a safe corner of the sheriff’s station, then took herself to the doorstep of the house where her parents now lived.
~
The Rabbit Hole was silent but for the low drone of the dwarves’ conversation across the room. The Merry Men sat in a circle, beer mugs clutched in white-knuckled grips, every ear turned to the large man standing at their centre.
“And that,” concluded Little John, with one final flourish to his rapt audience, “is how I reorganised the entire filing system at the library!”
The Merry Men erupted into cheers, pounding on their tables or leaping to their feet to clap the hero Little John on his back in hearty congratulation. All but Will Scarlet, who sat back in his chair with his arms folded and a scowl on his face.
“Pah,” he scoffed, once the furore had died down.
“What’s that, Scarlet?” said Little John. “Did you say something?”
“Pah, is what I said,” Will replied. “You’re always biggin’ yourself up, John.”
“Oh? You think you could do better?”
“I’m the bloody town records clerk, mate, of course I could do better. Let me tell you about my filing system—”
Alan-a-Dale took a deep swig of his beer and shook his head fondly. “I never thought I’d live to see a day on which Will bloody Scarlet boasted about his filing system, eh, Stutely?” He elbowed the man sitting next to him. “I could see you doing that perhaps… but...” his words trailed off as he realised what he’d said.
Scarlet... Stutely... filing systems...
The curse.
At the bar, Grumpy was having an epiphany.
It hurt a bit.
“Dopey,” he growled. “Did you… talk?”
Dopey’s eyes went wide and he slowly nodded his head. His mouth opened but no words emerged, closing and reopening again in increasing confusion, his expression shifting to one of panic as he felt in his pockets for his notepad.
“Here.” Doc fished a piece of paper and a pen from his own pocket and handed them to his brother. Dopey took them with a grateful smile and wrote a single word.
How?
“I’ll tell you how,” said Grumpy. “The curse.”
“The curse,” his brothers repeated, exchanging nods amongst themselves.
The curse? wrote Dopey on his paper.
“It’s broken, you idiots,” growled Grumpy. “THE CURSE IS BROKEN!”
Comprehension dawned on the Merry Men’s faces as Grumpy’s words rang through the bar. They turned to each other in delight and began slapping backs and shaking hands once again.
“Will Stutely, as I live and breathe!” cried Alan-a-Dale.
His companion’s face broke into a wide grin. “Alan-a-Dale, well met indeed, my man! Has it been you all this time?”
“It has!” said Alan, laughing and clapping his friend on the shoulder as they hugged, observing from the corner of his eye Will Scarlet almost lost in the bear-like embrace of Little John. “The devil’s own curse, this was. I wonder who cast it?”
“Who else?” snarled Grumpy as he and the other dwarves approached. “The Evil Queen. She did it before and she’s done it again, and this time she’s not getting away with it.”
“What do you mean to do?” asked Little John.
“We’re going to find our axes and do what we should’ve done the last time. Make certain the Queen can never hurt us again. Now, who’s with me?”
~
Regina was too distracted to notice the curse’s magic begin to shift and creak but she felt it shatter. She gasped as the razor shards of it prickled against her skin, jerking backwards and breaking her kiss with Robin. His arms were still tight around her, stopping her from stumbling, but his forehead wrinkled in confusion and she watched with her heart in her throat as he shook his head and blinked rapidly, and an expression of apprehension crept across his face.
“Your Majesty,” he said cautiously.
Regina refused to feel hurt, reminding herself that he probably thought she’d been under the curse as well and things hadn’t exactly been friendly between them in the Enchanted Forest. Of course he’d be concerned about her reaction to finding herself kissing him.
“It’s still Regina to you,” she said softly.
“Er—” his frown deepened. “Is it?”
“Yes. Robin—” she reached up to touch his face and he flinched, his muscles tensing. Fear made her heart pound as she let her hand fall to his shoulder and groped for the best words to explain. “You were cursed.”
“I remember. It was—wait, why do you say I was cursed? Weren’t you as well?”
“No.”
“But you—er, we—”
She nodded. “I had quite a lot of time to think this past year, with everyone else in town under the curse and with my son gone—” her voice broke and she paused for a moment to get hold of herself. “And I realised how much I regretted not being more… receptive to you in the Enchanted Forest.”
“‘More receptive,’” he repeated. “That’s an interesting way to phrase it.”
She felt herself flush. “I was a bitch,” she said flatly. “And I’m sorry.”
His eyes widened at this blunt statement and then a smile tugged the corners of his mouth. “Not a bitch,” he said. “Forceful. Determined. Prickly, perhaps.” His arms tightened around her, and her heart fluttered when she realised he’d never removed them. “Fascinating,” he murmured, his voice dropping lower.
She caught her breath then slowly lifted her hand again and laid it flat against his cheek, stroking her fingers across his cheekbone when he didn’t flinch away. He leaned closer and her hand curled around the back of his neck as his lips claimed hers.
Regina sighed into the kiss, shivering at the electric frisson down her spine as his hand slid up it and into her hair. Her arm wound around his shoulders and his tongue slipped into her mouth and then a cloud of white swirled up from the living room floor and Henry appeared.
~
Emma took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock on the door but before she could it swung open to reveal Snow and David, looking flushed and mussed and very surprised to find her standing there.
“Um,” said Snow, blinking in confusion, and then joy broke across her face. “Emma!” she cried, throwing her arms around her daughter. “Oh, Emma!”
Tears welled in Emma’s eyes as she returned the hug and they rolled freely down David’s cheeks as he wrapped his arms around them both, cradling the back of Emma’s head in his hand in that fatherly way he had that always made her choke up a little.
“I’ve missed you guys,” she said, sniffing and blinking rapidly.
“We—well, we didn’t actually miss you, but oh, I wish we had,” cried Snow, hugging her harder, and Emma and David both chuckled though their tears.
“Is it bad that I know exactly what she means?” David mused.
They clung to each other for another minute, a sniffling mess of limbs, then Emma pulled back. “We need to go to Granny’s,” she informed them, wiping her eyes.
“Yeah,” David agreed. “We had the same thought. That’s where people will congregate and they’re going to want reassurance. And honestly probably some vengeance. They let Regina go the last time but now—”
“Regina didn’t cast the curse,” Emma interrupted.
David and Snow exchanged confused looks. “Didn’t she?” David asked.
“Don’t you remember?”
“All I remember was that the curse came on so fast, almost out of nowhere,” said Snow. “And Regina had been working on finding a way to get back to Henry. I guess I just assumed.”
“Mom, she was cursed as your maid. And Henry wasn’t even here. She was miserable. Do you really think she’d do that to herself?”
“Good point,” Snow conceded. “But if Regina didn’t cast the curse then who did?”
“Zelena,” replied Emma grimly.
“Zelena!”
“Yep. Oh, and she’s the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“The Wicked—”
“But we don’t really have time to get into that now,” said Emma. “We need to get to Granny’s in case there’s another mob like when the last curse broke. We’ll need to give everyone that reassurance.”
David nodded in agreement but Snow had clearly not been listening. “But Emma,” she said, “weren’t you cursed too? How do you know—”
“Look, I promise I’ll tell you everything, but we kinda do have to hurry.” Emma tried to keep the impatience from her voice. “I can transport us with magic—”
“You can?”
“Mom!”
“Sorry, I just—this is a lot to take in.”
“Well, take it in at Granny’s. Can we go now?”
Her parents nodded but before Emma could gather her magic, her phone buzzed with a text. A scowl darkened her face as she read it. “Change of plans,” she said, tucking the phone back into her pocket. “I’m sending you two to Granny’s now, and I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
“Where are you going?” David demanded.
“To the sheriff’s station,” said Emma grimly. “And I’m going in hot.”
~
White smoke swirled and dissipated, leaving Killan and Neal in the sheriff’s station, just around the corner from the main room and out of sight of the cells. Neal started to move forward but Killian held out his arm to stop him and gave a small shake of his head. He pulled a mirror from his pocket, the same half of a broken compact that he had used to signal his location at Zelena’s farmhouse to Regina. It was just a mirror now, as far as he knew, the enchantment on it lifted or possibly expired, but a mirror was all he needed.
He flattened himself against the wall as close to the corner as he dared and carefully angled the mirror until it reflected the image of Zelena in her cell. She was reclining on the cot with her legs tucked beneath her, examining her fingernails. Everything else appeared normal.
Killian slowly released the breath he’d been holding and returned the mirror to his pocket.
“Looks fine,” he whispered to Neal. “I’m going in.”
“Wait.” Neal kept his voice low but the urgency in it was unmistakable. Killian turned to look at him, carefully holding on to his patience.
“What?”
Neal shifted his feet, grimacing slightly. “Look, man, I—I need to know something before we go in there. If I’m gonna trust you to have my back I need to know.”
“Know what?”
“Why you married her.”
“Neal—”
“Yeah, yeah, now’s not the time, curse is broken, gotta save the town, I get it. We will. But I need to know why.”
Killian sighed. The timing wasn’t great but he would prefer to have this conversation with Neal alone, with no David around to bluster or Snow to cluck. He reminded himself that Neal still didn’t know about the connection Killian and Emma shared, or what had happened between them over the past two years. Their last conversation had been in Granny’s, when Killian had promised to back off. Finding him married to Emma now must surely look to Neal like blatant betrayal of that promise. His anger, however inconvenient, was understandable.
“Because I love her,” Killian replied. The simplest explanations were always the strongest, and there wasn’t time right now for nuance. “I love her and she loves me and we want to spend our lives together.”
Neal’s scowl softened and some of the tension left his shoulders. He gave a small nod. “Okay.”
Killian nodded in return and together they moved towards the main room of the station. Just as they turned the corner a rush of magic struck them, with the strength of a storm surge on an angry sea. It flung them both off their feet and sent them flying backwards to land in an undignified heap in front of the door.
Killian shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears then realised that it wasn’t ringing at all, but a shrill cackle proceeding from the direction of the cells. He ground his teeth, even as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, grabbed his phone from his pocket and thrust it at Neal.
“Text Emma,” he snarled. “Tell her to get here right away. Then stay out of sight until she arrives.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stall the bloody witch until Emma can deal with her. Now hurry!” He scrambled to his feet and rounded the corner again, pushing his way through air made thick by magic. It resisted him, no longer a storm surge but a fen, the magic clinging to his clothes and sucking at his feet as he fought his way forward towards the cell where Zelena was still lounging, her pose ostentatiously casual and her expression far too pleased for Killian’s liking.
~
“Mom!” Henry cried, not seeing them at first. “Mom, you—whoa!” His eyes bugged comically and he clapped his hand over them. “Bloody hell!”
Regina leapt back, shoving at Robin’s shoulders until he released her and smoothing her hair. She knew she must be blushing furiously, and Robin’s amused expression only confirmed it. “Henry!” she exclaimed. “What—what are you doing here?”
“The curse broke,” said Henry. He peered cautiously through the gap between his fingers then seeing them standing a good foot apart removed his hand. “My mom and dad—er, both my dads are gathering everyone at Granny’s to figure out what happens now,” he explained. “I said I’d come here to get you, but I wasn’t expecting—I mean, I knew you weren’t alone, but—I thought people kissed at the end of dates!”
“They do, but… well…” Regina looked helplessly at Robin.
“But it’s not every day that a curse breaks in the middle of one,” concluded Robin smoothly, stepping forward and offering Henry his hand. “Hello, Henry, it’s good to meet you properly,” he said. “I’m—”
“Robin Hood,” interjected Henry with a wide grin, shaking the proffered hand enthusiastically. “I know. That’s so cool.”
Robin chuckled. “I’m pleased you think so,” he said, with a teasing glance at Regina. “Your mum was somewhat less impressed.”
Regina rolled her eyes dramatically, but she couldn’t quite suppress her pleased smile. “What do you want from me?” she huffed. “I said I was sorry.”
“So you did but I’m not sure I’m quite convinced—”
“Look, this is great,” said Henry, with a smirk and an eye-roll of his own. “I’m glad you guys are, you know, bantering or whatever, but the thing is we’ve got this curse that’s just broken, and—”
‘The curse!” Regina’s smile evaporated as a thought struck her, and she snatched up the flowers Robin had brought, scowling as she examined them.
“Um, yeah,” said Henry. “It is broken, right? Emma said—”
“Yes, it’s broken.” Regina plucked one of the flowers from the vase and peered at it. “Shattered, actually.”
“Shattered!”
“Yes.” Regina shivered. “It was always unstable and with all the pressure you’ve been putting on it lately, bringing love back, it was only a matter of time before the cracks burst open. Which leaves us with a new problem. That curse was made with magic from several different realms, and now it’s loose in the air and sort of—fighting with itself. Can’t you feel it?”
She looked up to find two pairs of concerned eyes on her. “I—maybe?” said Henry. “What does magic feel like?”
“Different magics feel different but this is like… well, to me it feels like shards of glass but for you it would be more like pinpricks all over your skin.”
“Shards of glass?” Robin exclaimed as Henry nodded.
“Yeah. I think I feel it.”
“As do I.” Robin put his arm around her, running his hand up her back. “Are you all right?”
She smiled, more touched than she could express by his care. “I’m fine. But we have to get rid of this magic. Storybrooke isn’t big enough to hold it all, and the longer it stays here the more dangerous it will become.”
“How do we get rid of magic?” asked Henry.
Regina looked again at the flower she held. “I think I might have an idea.” She looked up at Robin. “This flower,” she said. “Can you show me where you picked it? The exact spot?”
He nodded. “Yes, I remember it perfectly. But it’s deep in the forest.”
Carefully Regina probed at the magic swirling around her. Most of it had been loosed by the curse, far too sharp and dangerous to use, but there was enough of Emma’s light magic remaining in the loft for what she needed. “I can take us to the start of the footpath by magic, we’ll walk from there,” she said. “Henry—”
“I’m coming too,” Henry interrupted firmly, already on his phone. “I’m texting Emma now, so she’ll know where we are.”
“Good idea.” Regina looked again at Robin, who was watching her intently with a small smile on his face. Her belly gave a little flutter. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“I am.” He curled his hand around her shoulder as Henry tucked his phone back into his pocket. “Though I wish I had my bow. Unfortunately I’ve no notion of where it may be.”
“Oh, hey, I do!” said Henry said brightly. “I saw it at the pawn shop!”
“Do we have time to stop there and fetch it?”
“No,” said Regina. “But Henry if you tell me exactly where it is, I can summon it as we transport.”
“It’s in the back, hung on a mannequin in the far left corner.”
Regina closed her eyes and did her best to envision the back room of the pawn shop. She gathered all the magic she could touch and wrapped it tight around the bow, and the three of them. “Okay,” she said. “Here we go.”
~
“Well, hello, Captain,” Zelena purred as Killian struggled up to the bars of her cell. “What an interesting situation we find ourselves in.”
“Do we?” Killian kept his expression bland, carefully not revealing either the effort it took to hold himself upright against the crushing force of the magic in the room or the little details he observed, such as the fact that Zelena’s cell was still securely locked and the catlike smugness in her smile.
“I’d say we do,” she replied. “You must have noticed that the curse is broken.”
“Aye, that I did. The curse you told us we would never break. I suppose that is interesting.”
Irritation flashed across Zelena’s features, just for a second but he was watching too closely to miss it. “Yes,” she said. “You’ve done me quite a favour, you and your wife.”
“Have we? Things seem to have changed remarkably little for you.”
Zelena’s smile slipped again, for longer this time. “Breaking the curse released all its magic,” she spat. “It’s free now and it’s everywhere. There’s no escape from it.”
Killian fought to keep his own face from revealing anything. That was exactly what Emma had said. Its magic is everywhere.
“And yet, you’re still in a cell,” he pointed out.
Zelena snarled and he felt the air surge again. This time he was prepared for it, with his feet well-braced. It was rather like standing on the deck of a ship in reverse, he thought. On a ship the sea moved beneath him and here the air moved around him, but the rolling waves and the importance of keeping a wide stance with one’s feet firmly planted remained the same. Zelena’s lip curled in a snarl when he teetered but did not fall, and when the air ceased moving a moment later she fell back against the wall with a little huff.
She can affect the magic, Killian thought, but she can’t properly use it and the effort tires her. That’s good to know.
But where the devil was Emma?
White smoke swirled up just behind him and Emma appeared as though his thoughts had conjured her, wearing the darkest scowl Killian had ever seen on her face. Another surge of magic waved outward from Zelena’s cell, quick as the lash of a whip and giving Emma no time to brace against it. She threw up her hands in a makeshift shield but she was not quite quick enough to block the whole wave and she stumbled backwards, just for a moment—before Killian even had time to react she had righted herself and spun about to face Zelena.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she snapped.
“Whatever do you mean, dear?” asked Zelena, outwardly calm once again.
“What are you trying to do with the curse magic?” Emma demanded. “How are you even touching it?”
“It’s my magic,” Zelena hissed. “Did you really believe you could just cut me off from it?”
Something flashed in Emma’s eyes and her lips curled into a smile Killian recognised as highly dangerous. “There’s a thought,” she said.
“Well you’ll have no time to think it,” sneered Zelena.
A startled shout sounded from the hallway and Neal appeared, sliding on his back along the floor as a force invisible to Killian’s eyes dragged him by his ankle. Killian darted forward to help him but the moment his balance shifted he felt the magic in the air grab him, felt a crushing pressure on his chest as he was hauled backwards and slammed hard against the bars of Zelena’s cell. Dazed and winded from the impact, he drew a wheezing breath and shook his head to clear it, only vaguely aware as seconds later Neal was flung against the bars next to him, choking and gasping for air, his fingers scrabbling uselessly at his neck.
When Killian’s vision cleared he looked up to see Emma charging towards him, fury snapping in her eyes as she used her own magic to push through the sucking resistance of the force that tried to hold her back. Their gazes met and Killian could read her intentions perfectly in her determined glare and the set of her jaw; he knew her far too well to think even for a second that she might do anything other than what she now intended. She meant to save him and damn the cost, but if she went for him first it would be too late.
Which was precisely what Zelena was counting on.
“No, Swan,” he gasped, “Neal! Save Neal!”
Zelena cackled. “You’ll have to choose, Saviour,” she spat. “You’ve no time to save both. But the moment you release me from your shielding spell, I’ll release them.”
Emma’s eyebrows drew together and she looked sharply at Neal, whose face had gone mottled purple as he struggled for air. As difficult as breathing was for Killian, it was plain to him that for Neal it was far more so. He was choking to death and had mere seconds left.
“Protection… spell,” he ground out, trusting that Emma would understand.
She did. Relief washed over him as she nodded and shifted direction, heading instead for Neal. Zelena snarled and Killian could feel the force around him shifting, the pressure on his chest lessening. Zelena couldn’t maintain such a strong hold on to him while also keeping Emma away from Neal, he realised, and he could see the moment the same realisation struck Emma. With a furious shout she sent a burst of magic from her hands that burned clean through the curse magic, blazing an open path to Neal.
Zelena gave a cackle, triumphant on its face but with desperation ringing through. “Careful, Saviour,” she hissed. “One wrong move and he dies!”
Emma was frowning in concentration. She appeared to be feeling with her magic, Killian thought, probing at the force that was choking Neal in search of weaknesses.
“You’re right,” she conceded, with what he considered to be remarkable calm. “I don’t know how you’re influencing the magic like this, but I can’t untangle it without killing him. This, though,” she held up her hand and the subtle knife appeared in a swirl of smoke upon its palm. “This can.”
Zelena screeched in fury as Emma held the knife out with its sharp edge pointing downwards and with a single strong, controlled movement slashed through the air, severing nothing that Killian could see but Neal fell to the ground in a heap, clutching his chest as he sucked in huge gulps of air. In the same instant Killian realised that the pressure on his own chest was gone, that the air had shifted again, shoring up the space between Zelena and the door of her cell as Emma slowly turned to face her.
~
Robin strode along the footpath through the forest, his pace brisk and his steps sure. His bow and quiver were slung across his shoulder and Regina had to admit, wanted to admit after having wasted far too much time already in denying it, that his whole ‘rugged outdoorsman’ thing really did it for her. She hadn’t felt such simple animal attraction to anyone since—she winced as a spear of something that felt uncomfortably like guilt lanced her heart—since Graham.
She squirmed a bit before she could stop herself, and though neither Henry nor Robin was looking at her she adjusted her jacket and smoothed its lapels, wishing she could smooth away her conscience as easily. The thing was a damned nuisance, always pestering her with reminders of the terrible things she’d done, and all she had to atone for. It would keep doing that, according to Killian, until she’d made an effort to redress her wrongs. Regina grimaced. Graham was one of those wrongs, she knew, and she knew that there were consequences she would have to face—wanted to face, she reminded herself, she was genuinely tired of being a villain—for killing him.
But not just yet. Right now there were more pressing matters that needed her attention.
The path dipped, steeply and without warning, and the light through the trees shifted. It shimmered along the description of a downward curve, as if reflected off the edge of a blade, and when its arc was completed they found themselves standing in a wide clearing where the sunlight was dappled through shifting leaves and the ground a riot of colour.
“This is it,” said Robin, gesturing. “This is where I picked the flowers I brought you.”
Regina knelt and plucked a blossom from the ground, the twin of the one she had selected from Robin’s bouquet. “A mist lily,” she said, examining the trumpet-shaped head with its soft blue-grey petals, bobbing atop a slender stem. “I thought it was.”
“What’s a mist lily?” asked Henry.
“Just a flower.” Regina stood again and offered it to him. “It has no special properties, except that it only grows in the Enchanted Forest.”
Henry’s eyes went wide. “The Enchanted Forest!” he exclaimed.
Regina smiled. “Yes. This is the Enchanted Forest. Well, part of it anyway. I’m not sure exactly where.”
The trees surrounding the clearing were densely set, tall and wide and with thick-leaved branches that formed a canopy above their heads. It was impossible to see beyond it.
“At a guess, I’d say we’re at the northwest edge of your kingdom,” said Robin, frowning at the forest floor and then up at the sky. “Where it borders the ogres’ land. About, oh, two or so days’ trek from your castle.”
Regina felt a flutter in her belly. “How can you possibly know that?” she demanded.
“Mom, he’s Robin Hood!”
“Indeed.” Robin’s smile edged into a smirk, one she would dearly love to kiss off his face. “I’m an excellent tracker, as you know, and the first rule of tracking is to know where you’re starting from.”
“So cool,” breathed Henry. “Can you teach me how to do that?”
“Of course, if you wish. Though I think before we attempt to track anything through this forest I’d like to know exactly how we got here.”
“Ah,” said Regina with a smirk of her own. “That is the question. I believe…” she turned back to the path behind them and peered closely at the way the light hung in the air. “I believe this is a portal.”
It was a thin, neat slice through nothing, no wider than the breadth of a hair and invisible at most angles. Approaching from the correct one, however, one could simply step through it, out of one world and into another.
“But how?” Henry frowned as he circled it, poked his head through then pulled it back again.
“Unless I’m very much mistaken,” replied Regina, “it was cut by the subtle knife.”
“The knife Zelena had!”
“The very one. This is how she got the curse magic from the Enchanted Forest and into Storybrooke. And,” she added, her lips curving into a triumphant, vicious smile, “it’s how we’re going to get it back out again.”
~
Emma unlocked Zelena’s cell with a wave of her hand and stepped inside, still moving with some difficulty through the magic-thickened air, but more easily than before. Zelena was weakening, Killian thought. Pushing against Emma’s shielding spell to manipulate the curse magic was exhausting her.
Emma halted a foot or two in front of the cot where Zelena still reclined. Her previously triumphant pose now much more closely resembled cowering, Killian remarked, despite her attempts at bravado.
“I wanted to give you a chance, you know,” said Emma. “A chance to change and redeem your mistakes. The same chance we offered Regina. The same chance everyone deserves, at least once.” Though she wasn’t looking at him, Killian felt her words powerfully, deep in his heart.
“But,” Emma continued, “you refused that chance, again and again, and now it’s obvious that you can’t be trusted not to keep trying to harm us, even when you’re behind a shielding spell. There’s nothing I can do, no magic I can use that will keep my family safe from you. You’ve made it so my only option is to kill you, and that I won’t do.”
“Because you’re weak,” snarled Zelena. “Too weak to do what’s necessary.”
“The fact that you think that,” said Emma calmly, “is your weakness.”
She raised the knife again and probed the air with it, feeling for something Killian could not perceive—but Zelena could. For the first time he saw genuine fear in her eyes as it began to dawn on her what Emma intended.
“No!” she cried, leaping up off the cot. “No… you can’t! You wouldn’t! You wouldn’t!”
An expression of grim determination settled on Emma’s face as she located what she had been seeking with the point of the knife. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish there was another way.”
“No—” Zelena’s cry was cut off as Emma made another slashing motion with the knife, a single short downward thrust. Zelena gasped, a heartrending sound of pain and unspeakable loss, then collapsed onto the floor, her eyes gaping wide in shock and horror.
The sucking resistance in the air was gone, Killian realised, replaced by buzzing noise that started low then grew perceptibly louder as the air itself began to vibrate. “Emma—” he began, but he was cut of by Zelena’s shriek of pure rage.
“What have you done?” she howled. “What have you done? My magic… my magic—”
There was sorrow in Emma’s eyes, and a deep compassion, but no remorse. “You’ll never touch your magic again,” she said. “I’ve cut your link to it forever. The subtle knife can cut anything, you know.”
“You’ve ruined me! You bitch, you—”
“I did what I had to do to keep the people I love safe from you,” snapped Emma. “You would never have stopped trying to hurt us. Now you can’t.”
“Swan.” Killian reached cautiously into the cell, dizzy and discombobulated by the increasingly frantic vibrations that surrounded them. He slipped his hook around Emma’s arm, holding tight to the bars with his hand. “Love—what’s happened to the magic?”
Emma allowed him to tug her out of the cell and closed and locked the door behind them. She turned to him and frowned. “What do you mean—oh.” Her eyes went wide and she gripped Killian’s arm. “Oh. Shit.”
The buzzing was deafening now and the vibrations frantic, pinpricks of magic crackling and snapping around them with electric vigour.
“You can feel that?” asked Emma.
“Aye, I think even my organs can feel it.”
“It’s like an army of chainsaws in my head,” groaned Neal, struggling to stand. Emma held out her hand to help him and Killian his hook, still keeping a tight hold on the bars of the cell to balance all three of them. “What is it?”
“It’s the curse magic,” Emma replied. “It’s sort of—untethered. But it’s been that way since the curse broke, I don’t know why it’s acting this way now.”
As she spoke purple smoke swirled and Regina appeared, flanked by Henry and Robin. “I think I can answer that,” she said, turning to glare at her sister where she lay slumped on the floor of her cell.
“Hah,” said Zelena, with an attempt at her old sneer. “I’d love to see you try.”
“As would I,” said Killian. “Sooner rather than later, love, before we all turn to liquid.”
Regina shifted her glare to him, then began to explain. “We already know that this curse is not like the last one,” she said, and Emma nodded. “Zelena patched it together out of a hodgepodge of different magics, some of which should never have met. That’s what made the curse so unstable. And now that all of that disparate magic is loose it’s clashing and reacting, and that’s what we—what all of us, I guess—can feel.”
“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Emma.
“Storybrooke is too small to hold all of it safely,” said Regina. “It’s stuck within the boundaries of the town and there’s just too much of it. We need to send it somewhere where it has room to disperse, and the different kinds of magic can repel away from each other. We need to send it back to the Enchanted Forest.”
Killian scowled. “How the bloody hell do we manage that?”
Regina shot him another glare. “There’s a portal in the woods, one that Zelena must have used to cast the curse in the first place. One cut by the subtle knife.” She and Emma exchanged a significant glance. “Robin found it.”
“Stumbled upon it, more like,” said Robin.
“But what does that mean?” Killian pressed.
“It means we have an outlet,” said Emma, and Regina nodded. “We can funnel the magic through that portal and out of Storybrooke.”
“Exactly.”
“But then, how do we close the portal? Oisín said only the knife bearer can do that, and—”
“We’ll have to worry about that another time,” said Regina. “Once the magic is back in the Enchanted Forest it won’t be a danger to us anymore, and I can make a temporary patch to block the portal. It’s not a permanent solution but it’s the best we’ve got, and we have to move fast. The longer we wait the more dangerous the magic will become. We need to do this now.”
“Okay,” said Emma. “You go back to this portal, then. I’ll gather the magic here and send it to you, and you funnel it out. Does that work?”
Regina nodded. “It should.”
“Um.” Emma frowned. “How do we—do you have something, like a signal or something to let me know where exactly you are?”
“Take this.” Killian withdrew the broken compact mirror from his jacket pocket. “You still have the other half?” he asked Regina.
“I do.” Regina took the mirror’s twin from her own pocket. “These should work perfectly.” She waved her hand over both mirrors. “I’ve modified the spell so they’ll act like beacons. Once you have the magic under control, press your thumb on this mirror—” she handed Killian’s half to Emma “—and my mirror will send up a signal to show you exactly where I am.”
“Got it.”
“Okay.” Regina flexed her fingers. “Are we ready?”
“I’m coming with you.” They all turned to stare at Robin, who looked alarmed at the ferocity on their faces.
“I don’t think there’s much you can do to help,” said Regina.
“Perhaps not, but I’d prefer it if you weren’t alone,” he replied, and Regina’s expression softened to an almost girlish smile. Killian exchanged a glance with Emma, who just shook her head. Henry beamed.
“All right,” said Emma. “Regina and er—”
“Robin Hood.”
“Right. Regina and Robin, um, Hood will go to the woods and make sure the magic gets through the portal. I’ll collect it and send it to them and the rest of you—” she glared at Neal and at Henry, and finally at Killian, narrowing her eyes. “The rest of you stay out of my way.”
~
Flanked by his fellow dwarves and trailed by the Merry Men, Grumpy burst through the doors of the Rabbit Hole and headed down the street.
“We’ll go to Granny’s,” he said. “Gather a nice mob. Then we’ll hunt down the Evil Queen and this time she’ll get what’s coming to her.”
The dwarves chimed in a chorus of agreement but from the Merry Men it more resembled concerned muttering.
“A mob sounds like the wrong kind of justice,” said Little John. “Are you even sure it was the Queen?”
“Of course I am,” snarled Grumpy. “Who else would it be?”
“Well—”
“It was her,” Grumpy declared as they turned into Granny’s outdoor seating area. “It’s always her. Trust me.”
The door to the diner swung open with a cheerful chime of its bell and Snow and Charming emerged, she with a wide, delighted smile and he with his arms crossed firmly over his chest.
“It’s so good to see you all!” cried Snow.
“But you’re all going to need to turn around and go back home,” said Charming.
“Home?” growled Grumpy. “I don’t think so, Your Highness. We were cursed, again, and we’re going to make sure that this time is the last.”
“Oh we will make sure of that. But if your plan is to go after Regina I’m going to need you to rethink it. Regina didn’t cast this curse.”
“Ha,” said Little John, earning him a glare from the irate dwarf.
“Well then who did?” he demanded.
Charming’s expression was grim. “Zelena.”
“Zelena!” echoed Grumpy, as voices rose around him, dwarves and Merry Men all speaking at once.
“What, the mayor?”
“Ex-mayor.”
“Why would she curse us?”
“What does she get out of it?”
“Who was she in our world, anyway?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember her.”
“She was the Wicked Witch of the West,” said Charming, raising his voice above the din.
“Like from Oz?” called Will Scarlet.
“How do you know?” Grumpy demanded.
“Emma told us,” said Snow, smiling proudly. “She figured it out.”
“Oh yeah? And where’s Emma now?”
“Dealing with the witch, we hope,” said Charming with a scowl. “Look, why don’t you all come inside and we’ll tell you everything we know.”
~
The magic snapped through the air, almost snarling in its growing fury. Emma focused her attention on it, clearing her mind as she concentrated on it, on feeling it and reaching out to it. Its jagged shards sliced at her, and though she knew the pain she felt wasn’t physical that didn't stop her feeling it. The others felt it too, she reminded herself, less acutely than she did but it still hurt them. She needed to get this magic gone before it could cause any real damage.
Closing her eyes, she stretched her senses as far as they could go, feeling for the magic as it spread through Storybrooke, catching it and gathering it together, weaving it securely into a shape that could easily be sent to Regina. It was not unlike trying to wrestle angry cats into a sack and though her attention was entirely focused on her task she was grateful for Killian’s calming presence, close beside her with his hand rubbing circles on her back. She reached out blindly and gripped his hook, clutching it to keep herself grounded as she pulled the last bits of the magic together.
“Okay,” she gasped. “I’ve got it.”
Killian handed her the mirror and she pressed her thumb against it. Seconds later it buzzed as the magic that linked it to its twin formed a connection. Not an especially strong one—a bit like two tin cans joined by a string—but strong enough tho show her where to send the magic. She pointed it in the right direction and then with a mental heave she flung it away, imagining the sack of angry cats sailing through the air towards Regina and becoming her problem.
She could feel the moment Regina took control of the curse magic and when she was certain it was not going to get loose again she let it go, stumbling a bit at the release of her burden and leaning into Killian’s arms when he caught her. He hugged her tight and stroked her hair as she breathed a heavy sigh into his shoulder.
“Is it done then, love?” he asked, his voice low in her ear.
She nodded. “It’s up to Regina now.”
~
Regina and Robin stood in Storybrooke’s woods, one on each side of the portal’s slender arc, waiting.
Robin had his bow in hand, not fully drawn but with an arrow nocked and at the ready. A gust of wind rose up, sending leaves swirling around them and he tensed, his eyes sharp on the path before them.
“You think arrows are going to help against magic?” sneered Regina, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The snarky attitude she wore like a cloak had become simple habit, born of anxiety and the need to appear strong, but she didn’t truly wish to be so nasty. Not to him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and suppressed a smirk at his look of surprise. “I’m worried, and that makes me snappish. But I shouldn’t take my feelings out on you.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” he replied, with such earnestness she gaped at him. He smiled. “You forget I’ve seen your magic firsthand, Your Majesty,” he said. “I have no doubt you can perform this task with ease.”
His simple faith in her despite the hesitancy and uncertain tension that still hung between them warmed Regina to her very depths and made her wish that she were better at feelings. “Robin, I—” she began, and then felt the mirror in her pocket grow hot. “I—I think it’s time.”
She removed the mirror and pressed her thumb against it to answer Emma’s call. The mirror buzzed faintly in her hand as it linked with its counterpart and a moment later Regina saw the curse magic winding its way towards them from the direction of Storybrooke, woven into a tight and impressively tidy rope. Oisín had clearly met with more success in teaching Emma how to use magic than she herself had, Regina thought.
She reached out with her own magic, stable tendrils of it pulled through the portal from the Enchanted Forest, and took control of the rope. There was a moment of tension when both she and Emma held it at once, then Emma released her end and Regina stumbled at the abrupt shift. Instantly Robin was there, catching her before she could fall and keeping a steady hand on her arm as she wrestled the snapping and writhing magic through the portal.
As soon as the tail end of the rope had gone she released it from her hold and followed it, slipping cautiously through the narrow opening with Robin keeping a secure grip on her had from the other side, and watched anxiously to see how the magic would react to its new surroundings. For the space of several heartbeats nothing happened, but then slowly, almost cautiously, the rope began to unravel. It uncoiled itself, picking up speed when it met with no resistance, spreading out as far as it could, all the disparate magics skittering away from each other and dissipating into the atmosphere.
Regina exhaled in relief then drew a deep breath, full of the familiar scents of her homeland, and felt a tiny twinge of melancholy. Someday she should probably go back to the Enchanted Forest again, she thought, to fix the ravages her curse—and likely now Zelena’s curse—had wrought upon it. But not today.
She stepped back through the portal and wove a protection spell around it, to prevent anyone from stumbling through it by accident as Robin had.
If it had truly been an accident. Regina had some theories on that subject.
She turned to Robin, who was smiling softly. “Well done,” he said. “I knew you could do it.”
She felt herself flush under his praise. “I had help,” she replied with a small shrug, surprised to realise that the modesty was genuine. She would never have managed to defeat Zelena or break the curse all on her own. Without Emma and Henry, and perhaps most of all Killian—she would have been trapped forever in the special hell her sister had made for her. More surprising still was the realisation that working with them had been... nice. Nice to have people on her side, sharing her burdens, nice not to have to handle everything alone. Nice to have friends.
She shook her head at the foolish thought. They were far from calling each other friends, she and Emma and Killian—it was a long path to friendship from ‘reluctant allies,’ after all—and yet Regina had a stirring of a suspicion, a tiny fragile bud of a feeling, that someday this might actually become a reality.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a real friend.
“Speaking of which, we should get back to the station and make sure they’re all okay,” she said, taking up her magic again. “Are you ready?”
For @thisonesatellite and @ohmightydevviepuu and @katie-dub, YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID 😘😘😘 (and shoutout to @winterbythesea for filling the gaping holes in my video game knowledge)
SUMMARY: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time Emma is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from Henry and anyone else who might help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Killian have the ability to share their dreams, and are working together in secret to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from a new and dangerous foe.
Rating: M
AO3
-
Broken:
All her life Emma had loved to sleep, but she wasn’t the biggest fan of naps. Sleep, to her, involved putting on comfy, loose clothing, making the room as dark as possible, burrowing into her pillows and blankets and letting oblivion wrap her in its soothing embrace for at least eight hours, preferably more. Obviously, those perfect conditions didn’t happen often, but still a girl could dream.
Naps, she felt, were like fast food sleep. They met her most immediate needs but left her feeling heavy and groggy and a bit gross. Exactly the way she was feeling now. She peeled one sticky eyelid open and groped for her phone, groaning when she saw the time. Ten past six. She’d slept for over two hours, and Neal would be here in less than one. Rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands, she tried to force her foggy mind to focus.
A burst of triumphant laughter sounded from the living room, followed by a dramatic groan.
“Right, you’ll pay for that,” snarled Killian’s voice.
“Oh yeah?” Henry crowed in reply, “Who’s gonna make me?”
Emma heaved herself up out of bed and went to the curtain that separated her and Killian’s bedroom area from the main part of the apartment. She peeked around it and grinned at the sight that met her eye. Henry and Killian were on the sofa, controllers in hand, playing what was apparently a very hotly contested game of Battlefront II.
She thought back to when Killian had first begun attempting to play video games with Henry in New York, hampered by his missing hand and his general bafflement as to why anyone would want to sit for hours in front of a flickering screen, shooting imaginary bolts of light at each other. He seemed to have gotten over that in the past year, she thought, and now with his modern prosthetic he was able to manage the controller and navigate the game deftly enough that Emma had a sneaking suspicion he might be letting Henry win.
Although, she thought, as Henry racked up another kill, pumping his fist as his character respawned into Han Solo and Killian’s eyebrows snapped together indignantly, maybe not.
She pushed aside the curtain and went to sit on the arm of the sofa next to Killian, who flashed her a brief smile before returning his attention to evading Henry’s digital assault on him.
“Hey, guys,” she said, unable to resist letting her fingers sift through Killian’s hair. She still found it difficult to go too long without touching him. “Who’s winning?”
“The lad has a temporary advantage,” Killian replied grudgingly.
“Temporary my ass.”
“Language,” Killian rebuked, and Henry snorted.
“That’s rich coming from Mister oh bloody hell,” he retorted.
“Perhaps, but when you swear in front of your mothers I get the blame.”
Emma chuckled and Killian paused the game, looking up at her with the soft, adoring smile that never failed to make her weak. “How are you feeling, love?” he asked. “Rested?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She shrugged. “Kinda groggy. Do you think I have time for a shower before Neal gets here?”
“Aye, a quick one.”
“And you don’t need me to help with anything?” Emma looked around the apartment. It was as neat and tidy as ever, the way Killian always kept things.
“No, everything’s prepared for dinner, it just needs cooking. Go have your shower, then Henry and I should probably freshen up too.”
“What? I’m fresh!”
“Your mouth is, perhaps,” said Killian, quick as a flash. “But as this is meant to be a nice meal, please indulge me by putting on a shirt that isn’t covered in dog hair.”
“Ugh, fine.” Henry rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress a grin. Neither could Emma.
“What about that nice grey one I got you?” she suggested.
“Mom, I outgrew that like six months ago.”
“Oh.” The little flare of loss and regret was familiar now, but no less sharp. “Okay.”
Killian squeezed her knee sympathetically. “It has been replaced by another nice grey one, however,” he said. “Which I happen to know is clean and ironed and hanging in your room. Wear that.”
“Fine,” sighed Henry. “Can I finish kicking your arse at Battlefront first, though?”
“You can try,” said Killian.
~
They were making dinner together.
Mary Margaret knew it was happening, she was here, she was experiencing it. She could smell the rich aroma and hear the sizzle of frying onions, could hear the rhythmic sound of knives on a chopping board as she and David sliced mushrooms and minced carrots. Hell, she was the one doing the mincing. But she still couldn’t quite believe it.
It had been David’s idea. When they finished their lunch at Granny’s that afternoon he’d walked with her back to her office, as slowly as they could get away with, then lingered even longer by the door.
“This was fun,” he said. “I had fun. Did you?”
The thread of uncertainty in the question squeezed Mary Margaret’s heart and set her mind racing. What if—she could barely entertain the thought—what if David felt as she did? What if he wanted the same things? What if he was just as unsure of her as she was of him?
What if—this was the scariest what if of all—what if she actually told him what she wanted? That’t she’d like to give their marriage a real shot?
What would happen then?
“I did,” she replied, slightly breathlessly. “A lot of fun.”
David’s smile widened. “We should do it again.”
“We should,” she agreed, as her heart raced faster.
“Like tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.” David nodded eagerly. “Let’s eat together tonight. Let’s make dinner.”
“Make dinner? I can’t cook!”
“Me neither. It’ll be fun. Half raw and half burnt maybe, but, you know—” his eyes seemed to bore into her “—ours.”
“Ours,” she repeated, wishing she could draw some air into her lungs. “Okay.”
“Okay?” he echoed.
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay.” His smile was so soft, his eyes warm. “I’ll get some stuff. Ingredients and things, and I’ll—see you at home.”
Home, thought Mary Margaret, letting her eyes caress his ass as he headed back down the street, then jerking them away when she realised what she was doing. Maybe they could actually have one.
And so now here they were, standing next to each other in their kitchen, chopping vegetables and browning meat in an attempt to make spaghetti.
“Shouldn’t be too hard, right?” said David, opening an old cookbook he’d unearthed from the back of a cupboard. “We just follow the instructions.”
They browned their meat and added their veggies and a can of tomatoes, several pinches of herbs and a generous glug of wine. The aromas were amazing and the kitchen warm and steamy and Mary Margaret took off her cardigan, draping it over a chair, and when she turned back David was watching her, his gaze hot and almost tangible on her bare arms. She caught her breath and he seemed to catch himself, his eyes flying to hers, their gazes catching and holding, lingering as they began to move towards each other, slowly as if in a dream, drawn by the tug of attraction they could no longer ignore. David’s fingers gently traced her cheek and hers gripped his shoulders, and when their lips touched—so softly at first then harder, growing desperate—it felt right and natural and like coming home, and also sent the sharpest spike of lust through Mary Margaret’s belly that she could ever remember feeling.
She couldn’t remember it, yet it was so familiar. This was familiar. David’s lips on hers, the silky slide of his hair between her fingers, the breadth of his shoulders, the firm comfort of his arms around her making her feel safe and treasured. Loved.
Then his hands slid over her hips to cup her ass and all she could feel was the frantic certainty that if she didn’t get him naked, right now, she would die. She sank her nails into his shoulders and rolled her hips against his, swallowing his moan and adding her own as he hoisted her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist and then—
“Wait—wait,” Mary Margaret gasped, tearing her mouth from his. She was still a sensible woman, no matter how lust-drenched she felt, and just enough of that sense remained to remind her not to burn the kitchen down. She leaned over and turned off the burner beneath the bubbling spaghetti sauce, then wrapped her arms tightly around David’s shoulders and kissed him fiercely, telling him with her lips what she couldn’t put into words. What she felt for him, and everything she hoped that they could be.
When they broke apart he stared at her like he was seeing her for the first time, like she was his sun and moon and stars and everything in between.
“Mary Margaret,” he breathed. “I want—”
“Me too,” she gasped against his mouth. “Me too. Let’s—upstairs?”
The icy blue of his eyes had never been so hot. “Fuck yes,” he said.
~
That evening Archie returned to the small, draughty room he rented in the boarding house where most of the mine workers lived. His body felt as exhausted as it always did after a double shift, his mind as fallow. He collapsed onto the small sofa that doubled as his bed with a sigh and let his head fall into his hands and his eyes fall shut.
The cushion beside him shifted and sagged as Pongo leapt onto it, his tail swishing across the threadbare cover. Archie looked down at the dog with a faint smile that grew wider as Pongo covered his chin with sloppy kisses then settled down to rest his head in Archie’s lap, gazing up at him with warm brown eyes full of trust. Trust, and love. Archie’s heart swelled in his chest and the worst of his exhaustion seemed to lift, lightened as all burdens are by the presence of a friend. Tears prickled behind his eyes as he stroked Pongo’s silky head.
“Good boy, Pongo,” he said. “That’s my boy.”
~
“Your love does not see them. He sees you.”
Oisín’s words rang in Regina’s ears as she stood examining her reflection in the mirror in the loft’s small bathroom. Carefully she applied another coat of lipstick then brushed a tiny crumb of mascara from beneath her eye. She’d managed to resist the urge to put her glamour spell back on but not the one that had drawn her into the market on her way home from Emma and Killian’s to pick up a stash of land-without-magic cosmetics. It was all well and good to talk about trusting people with the truth of her appearance but did have standards, after all, and no intention of going on a date with nothing whatsoever on her face.
She gave herself a final once-over just as a knock sounded at the door and took a deep breath to quell the butterflies in her belly. It didn’t work, not even a little, and they fluttered more frantically than ever as she went to open it.
Robin—no, John, she reminded herself firmly—smiled when he saw her, a smile that had warmed and softened considerably over the past few weeks.
You look lovely, Regina,” he said, producing a bouquet of wildflowers from behind his back and offering them to her, almost shyly. She caught her breath. He’d brought her flowers before, many times during their slow, cautious courtship, but always from the florist. Tasteful, professional arrangements that a banker would choose, nothing at all like this handful of blooms he’d clearly picked himself.
“Where—where did you get these?” she asked, taking them from him and breathing deeply, barely stopping herself from burying her face in them.
“Ah.” He looked a bit abashed. “From the woods. If you don’t like them—” He reached for the bouquet but she snatched it back, cradling it to her chest.
“I love them,” she said. “They’re just… different from the ones you brought before.”
“Indeed. It was the most peculiar thing,” he explained, stepping into the loft as she held the door for him and following her to the kitchen where she took out a vase and filled it with water. “Every morning I go for a run, as you know. Always around town, along the same route. But this morning—I don’t know what it was but I just felt the need to get out of civilisation, into nature.” He shook his head wryly. “I’d barely had that thought when I found myself jogging down the road that cuts through the forest on its way out of town. I was feeling brighter than I had in some time, lighter somehow, and then I noticed a footpath leading off the road and into the trees, and on a whim I followed it. It led through some dense trees and then opened into a little clearing with a tiny rock pool surrounded by the most stunning wildflowers.” He caught her eye and smiled. “They reminded me of you.”
Regina flushed with pleasure at the casual sincerity of the compliment and returned her attention to her flowers, arranging them in the vase and admiring their colours in the fading glow of the evening light.
“So I took note of the location and went back there just now to collect some for you,” he concluded. “Do you really like them?”
“They’re beautiful,” she replied, looking up again to see he had moved closer to her—so close—close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek and hear the hitch in it, see his pupils dilate as he too became aware of just how close they were.
They’d seen each other nearly every day since she’d asked him to lunch, sharing coffee and meals and conversation but only rarely touching. Touches between them when they did occur were gentle, restrained. Cautious.
(“Regina,” said Emma, coming up behind her as she stood by Granny’s outer gate, watching Robin return to work after their first lunch date. “I’m really glad you’re happy. But… don’t forget he’s cursed, okay?”
“As if I could,” snapped Regina. “It’s kind of obvious in the way he doesn’t remember me.”
“That’s not really what I meant.” Emma shuffled her feet, her face the picture of both deep discomfort and grim determination.
“Well what did you mean?”
“Just that he—he doesn’t have control of himself. He can’t make decisions like he would if he weren’t cursed.”
Regina frowned. “Are you saying that un-cursed he wouldn’t be interested in me? Because I can assure you—”
“No! That’s not—look—” Emma crossed her arms over her chest, clutching her jacket sleeves so hard her nails left grooves in the red leather. “Don’t sleep with him, okay?” she burst out, flushing at Regina’s outraged glare but barreling on. “I know it’s none of my business and believe me, I really don’t want to be talking about it, but just—don’t. Cursed people can’t consent, and—” she took a deep breath “—I know that’s something my parents had to deal with after the first curse.”
Regina scowled, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the twinge of guilt that needled at her. She’d cursed Snow and Charming to those lives with full intent to hurt them as much as she could, and while she wasn’t precisely sorry for it her own recent experiences had given her a new perspective on what she’d put them through.
Things between her and Robin hadn’t exactly been friendly when the curse struck the Enchanted Forest, and while she’d had a whole year to think about that he had not. She’d spent those moments of the past year that weren’t consumed with her fear for Henry’s safety thinking about Robin and the way she’d treated him, wondering what might have happened if she’d been less scared, if she hadn’t let that fear make her so snappish and bitchy to him. Emma was right. Un-cursed, Robin might not wish for her to touch him.
That thought hurt far worse than she’d expected.)
But she wasn’t thinking about that now, not with him so close and leaning closer… not when her heart was pounding and her breath short… not when his lips touched hers and she just… melted into the kiss. Melted into him, unable to think of anything now but how right this felt, how right they felt, and how profoundly she wished she hadn’t fought against it for so long. She felt consumed by him, by them and by this moment, and neither Emma’s words of caution nor her own regret, nor even the ominous shifting and creaking of the magic in the air around them could pull her attention away from it.
~
When Belle arrived home she carefully removed the books Killian had lent her from their bag and placed them on the small table in her living room, taking a moment to let her fingertips trail over them, across the cloth bindings and the leather ones, tracing the titles and the authors’ names, and the illustrations on their covers. They all looked so fascinating she couldn’t wait to dive in and lose herself in the tales they carried within their bindings. And she knew exactly where she would begin.
(“It’s an adventure tale,” Killian explained as he handed the book to her, his eyes twinkling at the way hers widened and her hands trembled with eagerness. “A heroic quest to rescue a prince and reunite true loves.”
“Ohhh,” Belle breathed. “That sounds wonderful.”
“I figured you might like it,” Killian’s grin was warm. “I can tell already that you have excellent taste.”)
Belle made herself tea in her favourite cup, the one she saved for the most special occasions, and carried it carefully to her sofa, curling her legs beneath her and tucking a fluffy blanket around them, and a plump pillow behind her back. She sipped the brew with a contented sigh, and then she opened her book.
~
Neal Cassidy was no stranger to disappointment. It was always there, clinging to him like the smell of stale cigarette smoke he carried home with him each night from the Rabbit Hole, harsh and acrid and never wholly gone even when his clothes were freshly washed. The disappointment was the same, ever present, hovering in a cloud around his head, wherever he was, for as long as he could remember.
He’d had dreams once. At least, he thought he had. He must have, everyone did. He’d had dreams and he’d had a family—or at least he’d had a father, though he could barely remember the man, no more than a hazy impression of a hunched form and a plaintive voice.
I love you, son.
But that was a long time ago, impossibly long it sometimes felt, lifetimes ago. He was alone now, and had been for—well, for as long as he could remember. He worked as a janitor because he could do no other job, he drank alone because that’s what everyone did in Storybrooke. Each night the Rabbit Hole was silent but for the blaring music that was always on its speakers, patrons scattered throughout the dingy room, staring into their drinks and pretending the rest were somewhere else. Possibly pretending they were.
He worked as a janitor at the town hall, every day the same, sweeping and mopping and scrubbing, always under the sharp eyes of Mayor Green. Eyes that watched him more closely than a mayor really ought to watch a janitor, and with a smug, triumphant gleam that made him itchy and uncomfortable.
And then one day Mayor Green was gone, replaced by Mary Margaret Nolan. Deputy Mayor Nolan with tentative determination in her eyes, who greeted him with a kind smile and didn’t watch him as he worked, and who one astounding day had called him into her office to inform him that he owned the pawn shop.
(“It belonged to your father, apparently,” she said, “and he left it to you. I’m sorry I only found the records yesterday, they must have gotten lost. But the pawn shop is yours, and if you’d like to open it again, well, more business in town wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
“Um.” Neal’s head was spinning. He didn’t know the first thing about running a business. And yet… “Yeah, sure. I can try.”
When he unlocked the pawn shop the next day it was dark and dusty, with that stale smell places get when they’ve gone too long without exposure to fresh air. Neal stood in the doorway feeling the full weight and scale of the task that lay before him and how very poorly equipped he was to tackle it. He was seriously considering locking the place back up and never thinking of it again when a voice spoke behind him.
“Hi,” it said. “Are you gonna open this place?”
Neal turned. He didn’t recognise the boy—not surprising as he didn’t recognise most people in town—but his bright, cheerful expression lightened Neal’s heart and gave it an odd twinge.
“Uh, yeah,” he replied. “I’m gonna try. I guess.”
“Cool!” exclaimed the boy. “Can I help?”
Neal frowned. “Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”
“It’s Saturday.”
“Oh yeah.” Neal didn’t know much about kids but he was pretty sure this one was still a bit young to be going around talking to strangers. “Um, where are your parents?” he asked.
“My dad’s at work,” the boy replied, like he was expecting just that question. “He owns a bookstore.”
“He does?”
“Yep. I helped him get it set up, so I know what needs to be done. I could help you too.” He shrugged. “You know, if you want.”
Neal kind of did want. He wasn’t sure just how much help the kid could actually be, but just the idea of having someone around, of not having to do everything by himself, made the weight on his shoulders seem lighter. Still, a kid he didn’t know… “You sure your dad wouldn’t mind?” he hedged.
“He won’t,” said the boy decisively. “But I can call him if you like, to be sure.” Again he sounded like he’d been expecting exactly this development. Neal’s frown deepened. He wondered if he was being played somehow, though he couldn’t imagine how or why.
“Yeah, why don’t you do that,” he said. Let this play out, at least.
The boy took out his phone and tapped on its screen, then held it to his ear. “Hey, Dad,” he said. “I’m at the pawn shop. Yep.” His eyes flitted to Neal’s face and then away. “There’s this guy who’s gonna get it open again and I offered to help him but he wanted to be sure it’s okay with you… uh huh… yeah… okay.” He looked up at Neal. “My dad wants to talk to you.”
“Oh. Um, sure.” Neal took the phone from the boy. “Hello?”
“Hello,” said a voice, a deep, smooth, accented one that gave Neal another odd twinge, less pleasant than the one inspired by the boy. The voice was friendly, but it made Neal tense, his fingers flexing on the boy’s phone. “I hope my son isn’t troubling you,” it said.
“No.” Neal had the oddest urge to contradict everything this voice said. “He’s not.”
“Good. He sometimes lets his enthusiasm overwhelm his common sense. If he’s bothering you, feel free to send him away.” The voice was light and careless and Neal bristled at its lack of concern for the kid’s feelings.
“He’s not bothering me.” Neal glanced at the boy, who was listening intently.“He offered to help, and actually I could probably use it.”
“Excellent.” There was a hint of amusement in the voice now that Neal found deeply objectionable. He scowled. “Well, let me know if he causes you any trouble,” the voice continued.
“Sure thing,” said Neal shortly, and handed the phone back to the boy before he snapped and said something much longer. The boy took it back with a bright grin. “So I can stay?” he asked. He listened for a moment, then sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know. Okay. Okay, bye!” He ended the call and stuck the phone in his pocket. “I’m Henry,” he said, holding out his hand. “Henry Jones.”
Neal took the hand, feeling that twinge again as the small fingers wrapped around his own. “Neal Cassidy.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr Cassidy,” said Henry. “So, where do we start?”)
Henry Jones turned out to be just as enthusiastic as the voice had warned, bright and cheerful and actually very knowledgeable about running a shop. As was his dad, Neal discovered, when the man arrived later that day to pick up his son. Neal had ignored the funny twist in his gut at the sight of them hugging and forced a smile as the man—Killian, as he introduced himself—cheerfully inspected their progress and answered a lot of the questions Henry hadn’t been able to, and even some Neal hadn’t thought of yet. And Neal found himself taking the man’s number, almost gratefully, and even calling it, just once or twice, whenever he hit a snag he hadn’t anticipated.
Though he liked Henry very much Neal had weirdly mixed feelings about Killian Jones. He couldn’t seem to quell the hostility he felt deep in his gut whenever they met, the twisting anger and resentment that at most times simmered low but at others flared so high they licked right at the edge of hate. This despite the fact that the man was never anything but perfectly nice and helpful and by all appearances the kind of loving father Neal wished like hell he could remember. He tried to like Killian, he almost liked him. But that gut reaction was too troubling to ignore.
And that was how he came to find himself at ten minutes before seven p.m. walking straight past the Rabbit Hole and towards the harbour, turning down the small street where he could see the sign for Jolly Roger Books hanging from a wrought iron hook above the shop’s wide doorway, swinging gently in the chilly evening breeze.
Neal set his jaw and rang the bell, and a minute later Henry’s cheerful face appeared. “Come on in, Mr Cassidy!” he said, pulling the doors open. “You’re right on time.”
~
It was a typical night at the Rabbit Hole. The bar’s interior was smoky and dark though the sun was still in the sky outside, adorned with neon signs in precisely the wrong colours and a ceaseless blare of music from the speakers. Not bad music, not exactly, but bleak and melancholy and a strain on the ears, and just loud enough to make conversation impossible, should anyone wish to converse.
Generally, no one did.
A handful of patrons sat at random around the dark and grimy room, staring into their drinks or off into space, not looking at each other, not so much as a civil nod. This was not the place for civility.
It was a typical night and no one expected otherwise, none there hoped for any more or less from their drinking place or from their lives.
And then the music stopped.
It stopped abruptly, with no hiss of interference or record scratch, just silence that fell with the grace of an anvil and was in itself so deafening that it took a moment for those present even to register the change.
The town records clerk was first to notice, rousing from his reverie and frowning as he looked around, his eyes meeting the confused gaze of the librarian sitting one table over to his left.
“What happened?” he asked.
The librarian shrugged. “Maybe it’s broken?”
“Wouldn’t be a bad thing if it was,” said the clerk, and the librarian snorted.
“Maybe they’ll switch it for something good,” another voice chimed in, this one belonging to a man the clerk vaguely recognised. Did he work for the bank? No… the insurance company, maybe?
“Let’s hope so,” the librarian agreed.
“I hope so,” said a fourth voice from behind the clerk’s right shoulder. “If I never hear that whatever-stank again it will be too soon.”
“Hoobastank,” supplied the librarian, and they all groaned.
“Even the name’s bloody awful,” said the clerk, and the other men all nodded their agreement, sliding their chairs ever so slightly closer as they did, drawn by the unifying power of a shared grievance.
On the other side of the bar a similar conversation was occurring.
“Finally, I can hear myself think,” growled Leroy, still glaring at his beer like it had done him a personal wrong, but doing so in peace and quiet at least.
The man down the bar to his left sneezed, startling the man down the bar to his right, who had been dozing into his mudslide. “What?” said the sleepy man. “Wha’s happ’nin?”
The sneezy man wiped his nose with an enormous handkerchief. “Something’s wrong with the music,” he said.
“What music?” asked another man from further down the bar, blinking wide, guileless eyes. “Was there music?”
“Of course there was music,” growled Leroy, glaring at the dopey man.
“Loud music,” agreed the sneezy man.
“Kept me awake,” muttered the sleepy man as his eyes drifted shut. Leroy snorted.
They all turned to look as the door to the back room opened and another man entered, wringing his hands anxiously and blushing bright pink, the sweat on his forehead glistening beneath the neon glare of the bar lights.
“Um,” he whispered, far too quietly to be heard over the faint buzz of conversation that now filled the bar. He tried again. “Um,” he said, slightly louder.
Leroy felt a flare of anger oh his behalf. This bashful man was just trying to get their attention and no one was taking any notice.
“HEY ALL OF YOU,” he shouted at the very top of his lungs, turning so that the men at the back of the room would be sure to hear him too. “THIS GUY HERE IS TRYING TO TELL US SOMETHING,” he continued, pairing his bellow with a nasty glare that killed every last conversation in the room. “WHY DON’T YOU JERKS SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO HIM?”
The bashful man was pinker than ever but he nodded gratefully at Leroy. “Um,” he said for a third time, and every ear in the place strained to hear him. “I—I’m so sorry, but the music seems, ah, to be, er, broken.”
“What’s wrong with it?” called the clerk.
“I don’t know,” the bashful man confessed. “I can get someone in to look at it tomorrow, but it’s too late to do anything tonight. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” said the librarian. “I’d rather talk with this group of scoundrels than listen to another note of that shit.”
A chorus of “ayes” and “huzzahs” rose from the men around him, the clerk and the insurance man, and several others who had gathered around them to raise a pint in merriment together. Men whose day jobs left them drained and hopeless and who now preened in delight at being referred to as “scoundrels,” knowing it was as far from the truth as anything could be and yet feeling that somehow, deep in a place they hadn’t known they possessed, that secret place that brought them dreams of forests and campfires and glad camaraderie, scoundrels they might actually be.
“Doesn’t bother us—achoo!—either,” said the sneezy man, who had moved to sit next to the sleepy man and nudge him with a gentle elbow whenever he began to doze off. Leroy noted that the dopey man was now flanked by two companions, one white-whiskered with round, wire-rimmed glasses and the other wearing a broad grin that Leroy suspected ought to annoy him but instead made him feel like he’d found something long missing from his life. The happy man raised his glass to Leroy, and Leroy raised his in return.
“Doesn’t look like there’s a problem here,” he told the bashful man. “Why don’t you join us—” he’d meant to say join me, but the us he spoke instead felt far more right “—for a drink?”
The bashful man looked over at the group in the far corner, now laughing uproariously and toasting each other’s exploits, then back at Leroy. “Okay,” he said. “I’d like that, I think. Thanks.” He smiled shyly. “Thanks for everything.”
“No trouble at all, brother,” replied Leroy.
~
Neal followed as Henry raced up the winding staircase to the third floor and burst through the door to the apartment. Through it Neal could see Killian standing in the middle of an open-plan living space with his head bent towards that of a blonde woman, whispering in her ear. Their pose was unmistakably intimate, his hand curled around her waist and hers resting lightly on his chest, their heads touching. They turned when he entered the room and both smiled, strangely rigid smiles, Neal thought.
The woman’s face he could swear he recognised, though he couldn’t place it, and vague recognition definitely shouldn’t make him feel so angry at the sight of them together, or cause a stab of jealousy to pierce his gut when Killian’s fingers tightened on her waist and he pulled her almost imperceptibly closer.
So why did it?
Neal forced his emotions down and returned their smiles in kind and Henry, seemingly oblivious to the odd tension in the room, said, “Mr Cassidy, this is my mom, Emma.”
“Your mom!” Neal cried in astonishment, then wondered why he was astonished.
“Yep!” Henry’s bright grin faded slightly at the look on his face and Neal attempted to smooth his features as Emma stepped forward and offered him her hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said.
“And yo—” Neal began, when he realised in a flash of memory where he’d seen that face before. “Wait—did you say Emma? Emma… Swan? The sheriff?”
“That’s right.”
He could place her now, sitting at the end of the table at the town council meetings, sighing and tapping her pen impatiently. Neal frowned again as he tried to remember what he knew about Emma Swan. It was… not much. He didn’t know much about anyone in Storybrooke, and for the first time that felt wrong. He stared at her as he strained to remember, watching as she toyed absent-mindedly with the chain around her neck, the ring on her wedding finger catching the light.
“You’re married?” he shouted, and that gut feeling flared again when he saw her glance back at Killian, silently seeking support from her husband.
“Yeah, we—” Emma began, but Neal interrupted her.
“No,” he said, forcing the fury and jealousy down again and making an attempt to smile. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Of course you’re married. Henry’s parents.”
“Yeah,” Emma smiled in relief and from the corner of his eye Neal could see the tension drain from Killian’s stance. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Come in and sit down, Neal. It’s okay if I call you Neal?”
“Sure.”
“Do you want a beer or something?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Neal was starting to think he needed a hell of a lot more than a beer, but it was better than nothing. His gut was roiling and his head felt stuffed with cotton balls, and there was a distant buzzing noise in the back of his mind, like white noise from a broken television. He tried to force himself to think, to remember more about Emma, about Killian, about all these things that seemed to be teasing at the edges of his mind, but the harder he tried the louder the buzzing grew. He gave his head a hard shake and then another, and ignored Emma’s surprised look when she returned from the kitchen in time to catch him doing it. She pasted on a smile and handed him a beer.
“So Henry tells us you’re reopening the pawn shop,” she said, sitting next to him on the sofa and taking a pull from her own beer. She smelled like flowers, clean and sweet, and gods, he could swear it was familiar. Her scent slammed into him like a Mack truck, carrying memories of something he could feel but not touch, as powerful as they were indistinct. Why couldn’t he remember?
He gulped his beer and tried to concentrate on her question. “Yeah. I guess,” he said. “Kinda sudden, I know. I just found out recently that the place used to belong to my father.”
“Oh?” Emma’s voice rose a bit too high on the question.
Neal frowned at her. “Uh huh. I don’t remember much about my papa—er, I mean my dad. So it was a pretty big surprise to find out about it. But Henry, he’s been a major help with everything. I probably couldn’t have done it without him.” He looked at Emma and warmth bloomed in his chest. “Thanks for letting him come by.”
“Of course,” she said with a smile. “But you know, with Henry it’s sometimes hard to stop him.”
“That’s what, um, Killian said.”
“What did I say?” asked Killian, perching on the arm of the sofa next to Emma as Henry came to sit on the floor.
“That sometimes when Henry decides he wants something there’s not much we can do to stop him,” Emma replied.
“Aye, unquestionably,” said Killian. “The lad is a force of nature when he sets his mind on a thing.”
There was so much pride in his voice as he said it, and so much pleasure in Henry’s answering grin, and so much love on Emma’s face as she looked between them and her fingertips absently traced patterns along Killian’s thigh as his played with the ends of her hair, and suddenly it was all just too much. They rose up and they choked him, all the feelings between these three people and the ones churning in himself, and it was too much and too strong and too confusing, and the buzzing in his head was so loud he could barely think straight.
Blindly he set his beer down, hoping he managed to get it onto the coffee table, and lurched to his feet.
“Is everything all right, mate?” Killian’s voice hovered just at the edge of his consciousness, and the mate made Neal want to punch him.
“I’m fine,” he growled. “I’m just—not feeling very well. Think I should go.”
“Oh.” Emma stood as well and approached him cautiously, taking him gently by the shoulders, her hands warm through the fabric of his t-shirt. She tried to catch his eye but he evaded her.
“I’m really fine,” he said, stepping back. “I just gotta go. Maybe we can do this another time.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Henry asked. He was clearly trying to be calm but his eyes were so disappointed, and again Neal felt a surge of emotion that was far too strong for the circumstances. He shouldn’t care about disappointing some kid he only met a few weeks ago. But he did. He did.
“I just—I feel like—” he stammered, groping desperately for the words he needed to say, to explain. And then Henry stepped forward and hugged him.
Henry hugged him, and Neal’s arms came around the boy in return, automatically, naturally, like they’d done it before. He looked down at Henry’s eyes, big and brown and so damned familiar, so different from the clear green and blue eyes of his parents.
Was that even possible?
“I—” he tried again, but Henry interrupted.
“Please stay,” he said. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I—damn it.” Neal snarled. He wanted to go, wanted to run, fast and far away from all of this mess and tangle of emotions hot as fire and memories thin as smoke. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bear for Henry to be disappointed in him.
“I’ll stay,” he said, and the world exploded.
~
Sleeping curses broke elegantly, the Dark Curse dramatically, but this odd chimaera of a hybrid curse, cobbled together from odds of this and ends of that, bound by Oz magic and twisted through the mirror world… this curse shattered. It burst into shards like the very mirrors that made it possible and Emma, Regina, and Zelena gasped in unison as they sensed its fracture. There was no burst of light, no gasp of awakening, just a sharp shock and then memories and then…
The world blurred, shifted, settled, and then snapped back into focus. The colours and shapes and sounds of Storybrooke were themselves again, the breeze through the town was warm and welcoming and the trees in the forest tall and straight, their eerie menace wholly gone.
Emma looked at Killian, eyes wide.
“What is it, love?” he asked, reaching for her and pulling her close. “What was that?”
“I think…” Emma lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think the curse just broke.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“I—I felt it. I felt it shatter and its magic is… well, it’s everywhere.”
Neal was staring at Henry, blinking rapidly, then a huge grin split his face. “Henry?” he said, pulling his son in for a bone-cracking hug. “Oh my God, Henry. I’ve missed you.”
“Um.” Henry was still reeling from what had felt like an earthquake. He looked past Neal to where Emma and Killian were standing with their arms around each other, whispering frantically, then his eyes lit up with triumph as the pieces fell into place. “Have you?” he said.
“Yeah, kid.” Neal loosened his hold and ruffled Henry’s hair. “I did. I—wait.” The smile faded from his face, replaced with a scowl as he turned to Emma and Killian. “What’s going on here?”
They exchanged a look. “What do you mean?” asked Emma. “You were cursed—”
“Yeah, I know that, but I mean you—you two—” He gestured at them, his scowl deepening as they unconsciously drew closer to each other. “You aren’t actually—it was the curse for you too, right? All this is just the curse.”
“No, mate,” said Killian gently. “We weren’t cursed. Emma was briefly, sort of, but Henry and I never were.”
“Then you’re really—” Something dark and angry flared in Neal’s eyes.
“Yeah,” said Emma. “We’re married.”
“You married him,” sputtered Neal, almost choking on the words. “The pirate? The one who fu—” he broke off with a glance at Henry “—who took my mother away. Him, of all people.” He stared at them, shaking his head, then gave a bitter, grating laugh. “So much for your word, huh Hook?” he said. “You remember, your word that you gave me, to back the hell off and give me a chance to be a family with my son and my—well, her.”
“A lot has happened since I made that promise,” said Killian, as calmly as he could when the nasty curl of Neal’s lip was making him wish he was wearing his hook. “A lot has changed Bae.”
Neal hissed an angry breath. “Don’t call me that.”
“Neal, then,” Killian amended. “As you like. We have much to discuss, lad, why don’t you—”
“I’m not a lad,” snapped Neal. “I’m as old as you are in this realm, maybe older. I’m not that boy you knew.”
“You’re right of course. I’m sorry.” Killian’s voice was genuinely contrite now, his expression sorrowful. “I do know that. Sometimes I just—forget.”
Emma’s arm was still around his waist and she squeezed him reassuringly. “Look, I know there’s a lot we need to talk about,” she said. “And I promise you, Neal, we will explain everything. But right now the curse has just broken and people are going to be confused. So can we table all this, please, until we’ve had a chance to figure out what we have to do?”
“Do for what?” asked Henry. “Isn’t the curse broken?”
“Yeah it is.” Emma shivered at the sharp, dangerous feel of the magic that had come untethered by the shattering curse. “But that’s not necessarily the end of our problems.”
“So what do we need to do?” asked Killian.
“I’m not sure yet. Let’s start by finding Regina. And my parents.”
Their Way By Moonlight: A Day in the Life, Part 1 (Chapter 14)
You guys, this chapter. This chapter. It’s a LOT. It grew and grew and grew to the point where I realised it was going to be 8k, then 10k, then 12... and despite what @thisonesatellite or @ohmightydevviepuu might say, that’s really too much (yes I know there are longer chapters. But this is heavily plot-bearing and just Full Of Things, and I think 12k of that is too much. And also I wanted to drop it today because I’m going to be busy the rest of the week. SO.)
In which we get a further glimpse of life in Storybrooke under the curse as Henry works to break it, and Snowing share a Moment. Meanwhile Emma and Killian return to their dream and Emma returns to New York to see an old friend, this time with Regina in tow.
SUMMARY: A new curse has fallen on Storybrooke and this time Emma is trapped inside it, deliberately separated from Henry and anyone else who might help her break it. But what no one knows –including her own cursed self– is that she and Killian have the ability to share their dreams, and are working together in secret to find a way to break the curse and free everyone from a new and dangerous foe.
Rating: M
AO3
-
A Day in the Life, Part One:
The bedroom is just as he remembers, though as he stands observing it he thinks perhaps it seems somehow lighter? Bright sunlight glows warm and mellow through the curtains and the smell of the sea is stronger, sharp and briny and so familiar to his nose. He peers out the windows and thinks he can discern a coastline and and the subtly varying shades of blue that fade one into the other to mark the horizon where water meets sky.
It’s always soothed him, that horizon.
Slender arms slip around his waist and he doesn’t have to look to know whose they are. Even if this weren’t their private dream, the bedroom they designed themselves to be their haven after the curse took her, he would know Emma’s touch anywhere.
He turns to wrap his arm around her shoulders and draw her close against his side, pressing a kiss to her hair.
“What’s this about, love?” he says.
“What do you mean?” she asks innocently. The coyly contrived innocence that always means she’s up to something. Killian feels a stirring of anticipation in his belly.
“Emma, we are currently tucked up in our real bed and you are asleep in my arms, drooling on my chest,” he says. “We just made love. What are we doing here?”
“I just thought it might be nice to see how the dreams work,” she says. “When we’re together, I mean, and when I’m not cursed or otherwise memory-impaired. I thought there might be stuff we could do with them.”
She’s smiling but there’s a glint in her eye, a playful mischief he’s missed more than he realised. It’s been far too long since they last crossed swords. He lowers his voice to a growl. “What did you have in mind?” he asks.
The dream shifts around them and they are at the top of the beanstalk, standing amidst the skeletons and fallen stones that litter the courtyard of the giant’s castle, their breaths still short and laboured from the climb. They are dressed as they were then and when he turns to look at her she’s exactly as he remembers, except for the look on her face.
“Curious choice,” he says.
“This was the first time I wanted to kiss you,” she replies. “When you tied that damn scarf with your teeth and your eyes never left mine, and I just—” she draws a deep breath as he leans closer, holding her gaze as he did then. “It was just really hot”
“Well, naturally.” He smirks lasciviously at her and she laughs, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. He responds eagerly, part of him wondering what his past self would have thought if she’d kissed him like this back then, and realising he genuinely isn’t sure. He finds it increasingly hard to remember the time when he didn’t love Emma; though he had nearly three centuries of it they have begun to feel like years lived by another man.
The kiss is long and intensely passionate but it ends sweetly, with clinging lips and foreheads pressed together. “You know,” he tells her with a soft smile. “This wasn’t the first time I thought of kissing you.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No.” He reaches out to the dream and the scene shifts to the corner of a sun-dappled field in the Enchanted Forest. Ogres roar and bellow in the distance and Emma is tied securely to a tree.
“Hmmm,” she says, tugging at the ropes to test the knots in them. “This isn’t quite how I remember it.”
“I took a liberty or two.” He gives her a sharp-edged grin and holds her gaze again as he reaches down and pulls the dagger from her boot. “Though some things remain the same.”
He brandishes the dagger as she watches him with heat in her eyes, and wonder. “Did you really think about kissing me then?” she asks. “I threatened to leave you to the ogres. And I wasn’t bluffing.”
“Aye, I’m quite aware.” He smiles wryly at the memory. “You were magnificent, love. Fierce and clever and utterly breathtaking. I was furious with you and also thought you the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.” He lets the dagger trail along her jaw and across her lips, thrilling at the hitch in her breath. “I wanted to kiss you in part out of desire to possess a beautiful thing, and part because I knew how greatly it would infuriate you.”
He catches the neckline of her shirt with the dagger’s tip and tears it neatly down the front, exposing the tops of her breasts and the lacy edge of her bra. This he also rips, slowly peeling back the lace until her nipple is freed and her breaths are harsh and shallow, her eyes dark with lust. Burying the dagger in the tree trunk, he takes her lips hard with his, his tongue deep in her mouth and his hand rough as it fondles her breast. She strains against her bindings, growling in frustration when they hold her fast, and nips at his lip hard enough to draw blood. He snarls in response and tangles his hand in her hair, tugging her head back and biting down on the throbbing pulse in her neck.
“You know,” she gasps, “if we’re going to have a hard fuck against a tree I’d really rather do it here.”
The dream shifts again and they are swaying together in the thick green jungle of Neverland, their mouths a breath apart. She has him by the collar of his coat, his hook at the small of her back, his fingers in her hair. This he remembers as clearly as yesterday, the sweet spice of his rum on her tongue and her scent in his nose, the smell of sweat and Emma. He still loves the way she smells but back then it nearly drove him mad, and he recalls all too well the effort it took not to haul her back when she pulled away from that kiss, not to shove her against a tree, a rock, anything, and just devour her.
She’s looking at him as though she knows what’s on his mind—doubtless she does, he thinks, that open book reads both ways—and challenge glints in her eyes. With a deep-throated snarl he takes it, backing her up until she’s caged against a tree and no space remains between them, rolling his hips against hers as he drags his teeth up her neck. She gasps, fingers clutching at his hair, dragging his lips back to hers and into a kiss that soon has them both frantic for the touch of the other’s skin, tearing at their clothes. “I wanted this then,” she confesses as she pulls his shirt free from his trousers and runs her hands up his back. “I used to lie awake wondering what might have happened if I hadn’t pulled away.”
“Me too,” he growls. “The whole year we were apart I lived on memories of it, and when memory no longer sufficed I moved on to fantasy.”
He shifts the dream again and they are in his cabin on the Jolly Roger, he dressed only in his leather trousers, loosely laced, and she with his flowing black shirt draped around her and slipping off her shoulder. She’s perched on the edge of his desk and he approaches her with a swagger and his old lewd smirk, using his hand and hook to part her legs as he steps between them. She catches her breath as his laces tickle at the damp hair between her thighs.
“This is where I imagined you most,” he murmurs, brushing her hair back and letting his fingers trail down her neck and over her collarbone. The rumble of his voice, his breath across her naked skin makes her shiver. “Here on my ship, on this desk, in my bed. Against the helm, and the mast… I wanted you everywhere. All the time.”
She lets her hand trail down his chest and beneath his trouser laces to where his cock is hard and aching for her touch. He moans as she closes her fist around it and shifts to spread her legs wider, dragging the tip through her dripping folds. He sucks in a harsh breath and stills her movements with his hand, letting his forehead drop to rest against hers.
“Darling,” he chokes. “As delightful as it would be to live out my fantasies like this, I really do prefer to be awake when I’m inside you.”
They woke simultaneously, hot and panting and already wrapped around each other. He could smell her arousal in the air, feel it in the dampness against his hip, see it in the flash of her eyes before she kissed him, deep and with an urgency that matched his own. He grabbed her thighs with his hand and stump, urging her up to straddle him. She was as wet as she’d been in the dream and he as hard and she slid down onto him easily, sighing against his lips as she did and swallowing his answering groan.
She felt so damn good around him, Killian thought, like they were made to fit together. Sex with Emma would be amazing no matter what, he had no doubt of that, but this bond of theirs—be it soulmates or True Love or simple filthy lust—whatever it was it heightened each sensation, every brush of fingers on each other’s skin, every stroke of tongues and lips, each nip of teeth was more than it should be, more than he had ever known before, with anyone.
More than with Milah.
He’d be lying if he said that didn’t trouble him, a bit. He had loved Milah; they hadn’t been True Love perhaps but he had loved her truly. He had also, he had come to realise, loved her selfishly, and when the crocodile murdered her Killian’s vow of vengeance had been inspired not by any desire to see justice done for a life cut far too short but rather by his impotent fury at having something precious taken from him. Another person he loved torn violently away at the whim of a powerful and capricious creature. It was that injustice that had consumed him, that petulance he had carried with him to Neverland where it crystallised as though trapped in amber. The timeless magic of the island had preserved his fury and kept it sharp and hot, kept his lost love fresh in his mind for centuries instead of fading into the fondness of memory as it should have done, as it had done, eventually, the moment he was free from the influence of that wretched land.
The moment he met Emma.
Emma who was now moving above him, arching her back and driving her hips down to take him fully inside her, rocking them in the way she knew drove him wild. Emma who filled his heart and mind and soul, not with anger or vengeance but with love and hope and the desire to be better than he had been, the best he could be. To deserve the love she freely gave.
(“You’re more than your mistakes,” she’d said to him once, not long after his arrival in New York. “You’re more than your temper.”
“It’s a terrible temper, though, and they were more than mere mistakes. I hurt people—”
“I know. And honestly for a while that’s all I could see when I looked at you. The man who shot Belle and stabbed Gold, and teamed up with Greg and Tamara to destroy the town. And stole the bean.”
“Must we enumerate each one?”
“I was so mad at myself for still being attracted to you, despite all of that,” she confessed. “Now I know that what I felt was a connection to a deeper part of you. A part that none of us could see then, not even you yourself. The real you, under all the anger and the hurt. That’s the man I see when I look at you now.”)
He groaned as she found their rhythm and at the way she clenched around him as she moved, taking the always-pleasurable slick drag of his cock inside her into new and more euphoric heights. His fingers flexed against the soft flesh of her ass and he dragged his stump over her breasts and down her belly before pressing it against her clit, delighting in the shiver of pleasure that shook her at the feel of his scarred skin on her sensitised nerves.
“Harder,” she choked and he complied, grinding his wrist against her as she fucked him, until she was gasping and digging her fingernails into the skin of his arm, until she came with a hoarse cry. The moment she did he rolled her beneath him, bracing his forearm against the headboard and driving himself hard into her as her orgasm fluttered around him, keeping her high as he chased his own release. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his back and held him close to whisper in his ear.
“I love you,” she said, “so damn much. You’re the love of my life, Killian.”
“And you mine,” he groaned into her neck, feeling the inadequacy of these words to express the depth of his feelings but he knew she understood. She caught her breath, fluttering around him again with a light little aftershock of an orgasm that pushed Killian over the edge and into his own.
~
His alarm shrilled in Henry’s ear and he groaned, groping at his phone until he managed to hit snooze then rolling over to bury his face in his pillow and grab just a few more minutes of sleep. He hated getting up early (“Just like your mum,” his dad always said, with a sorrowful shake of his head) and especially not on Saturdays, but he had too much to get done today to waste any time sleeping in.
It was all coming together now, all the small steps he’d taken over the past month to change lives in Storybrooke, to help people find their love again. He was almost there, so close he could taste it, and both his moms confirmed that they could feel the curse growing progressively weaker with each passing day. Henry had to force himself not to rush, not to push too hard or expect too much from people still under strong magical influence. He reminded himself that love needed time to grow and develop. But at the same time he was so close and he couldn’t help feeling excited.
The alarm rang again and this time he turned it off. He stretched as he sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the sleepy fog from his brain. Was that a strange noise drifting up from downstairs, he wondered, or could he still be dreaming? He listened more carefully. It sounded like… singing?
What?
He got out of bed, tiptoed to the railing of his bedroom on the upper floor of the loft and peered over it. There was Regina in the kitchen, already showered and dressed (she didn’t have any problem getting up early; he had definitely inherited that from Emma), making breakfast. And singing.
Singing.
And then, as if that wasn’t entirely weird enough, she started dancing. His mouth dropped open and he actually rubbed his eyes again, like that might change the scene before him. It did not. There, right there, in the meticulously tidy black-and-white kitchen Emma had magicked into the loft, Regina Mills shook her hips and warbled a tune as she stirred the scrambled eggs.
She must have a date with Robin today, thought Henry. There could be no other explanation.
He remembered the day he’d discovered John Wood in the storybook and realised not only that his mom was dating Robin Hood, but that at least some of the Merry Men were in Storybrooke too: Will Scarlet kept the town records and Little John worked at the library. Men who in their real lives lived in the wild, in the woods, free from any authority but their own, under the curse were a banker, a records clerk, and a librarian.
You had to hand it to Zelena, Henry admitted, she’d done an incredible job of ensuring that no one in town would ever find a way to love the work they did. Love for a career or a lifestyle must also be a threat to the curse, he’d concluded, and he and his dad had added it to their list.
One mom dating Robin Hood, he reflected, watching Regina shimmy as she scooped the eggs onto plates, and the other married to Captain Hook. He grinned and shook his head. What a family.
~
Mary Margaret awoke to the sound of birds singing outside her window and she smiled. It was Saturday, one month in to her tenure as Acting Mayor of Storybrooke, and she was taking the day off.
She would be lying if she said the weeks since Zelena’s ‘resignation’ hadn’t been something of a challenge for her. She was unaccustomed to having any kind of real authority or the responsibility that went with it, used to Zelena being the one to call the shots and shoulder any blame or consequences that may arise from them, but slowly, gradually, Mary Margaret had begun to find her feet and her confidence, and discovered that actually being an authority figure wasn’t as terrifying as she’d once thought.
Plus, of course, any burden was lighter when you had someone to help you carry it.
On that thought she bounded from bed and put on her robe, pausing just long enough to glance in the mirror and run her fingers through her hair before hurrying downstairs to have breakfast with her husband.
David was already in the kitchen, making coffee. He smiled brightly when he saw her and pushed down the lever of the toaster. She returned his smile almost without thinking, her heart fluttering in a way that had become very familiar over the past month. Precisely what was growing between herself and David she still wasn’t quite sure, but she knew that something intangible had changed in their marriage and in them, something that she found to her surprise didn’t feel new at all but more like they were rediscovering parts of themselves they had somehow forgotten.
And discovering that those forgotten things fit perfectly together.
David was dressed in a flannel shirt that stretched across his shoulders and brought out the blue of his eyes, eyes that were warm and eager as he handed her a cup of coffee.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
She nodded even though she hadn’t really. She’d spent far too long tossing in her bed, unable to sleep for thinking of him in his own, in his bedroom that lay mere feet away on the other side of their suite’s dividing door, and when she finally managed to drift off she’d dreamed of him.
“I did,” she lied. “What about you?”
David nodded too but something in his eyes, a spark of heat that found its answer deep in her chest, made her wonder if he too hadn’t lain awake thinking of the thin and unlocked door that separated them. She wondered what he’d do if she opened that door, if she invited him into her room. Into her bed.
“David,” she began, taking courage from the way he smiled when she said his name, “I—”
The toaster’s lever popped up with a noise that made them both jump. David gave her a slightly apologetic look and turned to deal with it.
“What were you going to say?” he asked as he put the toast on plates.
“Nothing.” Mary Margaret felt foolish for even thinking it. They’d agreed on separate rooms for a very good reason, even if she could no longer remember what that reason was. She sat down at the table and focused on her coffee, forcing a smile when David set a plate of toast and jam in front of her and sat down himself.
“Are you going to the shelter today?” she asked him as they ate.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Working a full day today.”
“You’re still busy then?”
“Busier than ever. I’ve got a long lunch break, though, if you, uh,” he cleared his throat, “if you wanted to meet me at Granny’s?”
Her smile came unforced this time, along with a blossoming warmth in her chest. “I’d love that. If you’re sure you can get away?”
The rush of pet adoptions that began about three weeks before had taken Storybrooke’s animal shelter greatly by surprise. Dogs and cats that had languished there for as long as anyone could remember were suddenly snapped up as the town’s residents seemed spontaneously and simultaneously to be gripped by a desperate need for animal companionship. The shelter’s skeleton staff found themselves completely unable to cope with the demand and had sent out an urgent appeal for volunteers. An appeal that David, to Mary Margaret’s tremendous surprise, jumped at.
“I’ve always wanted to work with animals,” he’d said.
“That’s—great,” Mary Margaret had replied, resisting the urge to scream Since when? Where had that been hiding all these years in her useless playboy of a husband, in the man who had never shown an interest in anything but drinking and gambling, and flirting with women who weren’t her?
Increasingly she was finding it difficult to reconcile her memories of that man with the one who sat across from her now, dressed in flannel and excited for his volunteer job at an animal shelter. The man in her memories held no interest for her, inspired no feelings other than a vague distaste. This man, though...
This man she could love.
“I’m sure,” said David firmly. “This is the first day off you’ve had since you took over from Zelena, and I want to treat you to lunch.”
The fluttery feeling was back in her belly, stronger than ever, and her hands trembled as she wrapped them around her coffee cup.
“It’s a date, then,” she said.
~
When Killian woke again the sun was up and shining brightly through the apartment’s tall windows. He nudged Emma gently and she groaned, burying her face in his neck. “Too early,” she whimpered.
“It’s a quarter past eight, love,” he said, running his hand up and down her back. “We slept quite late in fact. A consequence of you ravishing me twice in one night, no doubt.”
She snorted. “I didn’t hear you complaining.”
“Nor will you, I’m simply pointing out that more sex equals less sleep.”
“Ugh. Can you stop being logical please and just let me grumble?”
“Of course.” He grinned. “I’ll go make some coffee, shall I?”
“You do that.” She burrowed into her pillow as he rolled from the bed and took his prosthetic from the table next to it. Deftly he attached it to his arm—he’d grown quite used to the thing over the past few weeks and found that he was missing his hook less and less—and pulled on some loose sweatpants before heading to the kitchen, whistling an old sea shanty.
He was far too cheerful in the mornings, thought Emma as she snuggled deeper into the bed. Her eyes drifted shut again and she dozed off to the tune of his shanty and the sounds of him bustling in the kitchen, and was only hazily aware of his lips brushing her forehead or the clink of a coffee cup being placed on the table next to the bed.
“I’m going to have a shower, love,” he said. “Don’t forget you’re meeting with Regina at nine.”
“Urmph,” said Emma to her pillow.
“That’s in half an hour,” called Killian’s voice from the direction of the bathroom.
Emma made another growly noise as she pushed herself upright, wincing a bit at her stiff muscles, and groped for her coffee. She sighed as she wrapped her hand around the warm mug and sighed again as she sipped from it. The coffee was perfect. Rich and smooth and just hot enough, and Killian had put in her cinnamon vanilla coffee creamer even though he hated it (“It’s not even cream, Swan! It’s made of something called hydrogenated vegetable oil, and while I don’t know what that is it sounds appalling”) and two sugars. She grinned, picturing the look that must have been on his face as he stirred it.
She was still sipping when he returned to the bedroom, damp and with a towel wrapped around his hips. “You going to have a shower before you go?” he asked, rummaging in a drawer for some underwear.
“Mmmm. In a minute.” She smirked when he turned to look at her and he did the same, letting the towel fall to the floor and taking his time with his boxers, his eyebrows dancing suggestively.
Two could play at that game, thought Emma as she finished off her coffee. She set the cup down and threw off the covers, standing and stretching luxuriantly, giving him a good eyeful of her naked body.
An eyeful he definitely took.
She sauntered over to him and let her fingers comb and sift through his chest hair as she kissed his cheek. “I’ll be ready in twenty,” she said, ducking away from his reaching arms and heading for the bathroom, swinging her hips because she knew he was watching her go.
Twenty minutes later she was showered and dressed, hair dried and styled with the aid of just a whisper of magic, wrapped securely in Killian’s arms as they kissed goodbye.
“I’ll see you at dinner, then,” he said.
She nodded. “I’ll keep you updated.”
“Good.” They kissed again, lingering as long as they dared until finally she pushed him away and out the door, waiting until she heard his footsteps descend all the way to the bookstore before poofing herself to the sheriff’s station. Precisely two seconds after she arrived, the doors opened and Regina appeared.
She was carrying an armload of books and cut off Emma’s greeting with frown and a jerky nod, indicating that they should go into the office and out of Zelena’s earshot. Once inside with the door securely shut behind them Regina dropped her books on Emma’s desk and turned to her with a triumphant look.
“I think I’ve found it,” she said. “The mirror magic and how Zelena must have used it to pull off this curse.”
~
The first stop that Henry made that morning was the animal shelter. He’d taken to stopping in there daily, usually after school, to talk with David and play with the animals, and to help people reunite with the pets the curse had taken from them.
Love for a pet could be as strong as love for family.
His grandfather was there already when he arrived, and greeted him warmly.
“Hi Henry,” he said. “Here for your visit?”
“Yep! I know it’s kinda early but I have lots of stuff to do today. Have you got anyone new?”
“A new dog arrived just this morning actually,” said David. “We just finished getting him set up. Would you like to meet him?”
“Yeah!”
David opened the door to the part of the shelter where the dogs were kept and held it for Henry. “He’s a Dalmatian,” he said, as they approached the new dog’s cage. It was as comfortably equipped as a cage could be, with full food and water bowls and a large plush bed, even several chew toys strewn about. The dog in question lay curled in the bed, though he perked up his ears when he heard them coming.
“It looks like he must have been a pet once,” David was saying as Henry grinned widely and barely managed not to do a little dance of joy, “He’s got a collar and a microchip but it seems to be damaged and we can’t read it. Poor guy, he’s had a hard time of it for a while.”
Henry stopped in front of the cage and reached his hand through the bars. “Pongo,” he whispered.
“What?” asked David.
“Oh, nothing.”
Pongo leapt to his feet at the sound of Henry’s voice and ran to him, tail wagging wildly, covering first his hand and then his face in enthusiastic, sloppy kisses. Henry laughed.
So did David. “Well he certainly seems to like you!” he said. “Would you want to adopt him?”
“No,” said Henry. “But I think I know someone who will.”
~
“This is old magic,” said Regina, in a solemn voice that held Emma’s attention almost more than her words. “Old and very obscure. It comes from a land similar to this one, almost the same actually except that magic exists in abundance and is considered normal.”
Emma frowned. “But how is that possi—”
“There are lots of theories,” interrupted Regina with an irritated huff. “But it’s complicated and we don’t really have time to get into the details now. All you need to know is that there are hundreds of realms, thousands maybe, some very different and some that are so similar to each other that you’d hardly notice they weren’t identical unless you were really looking.”
“Okay.” Emma resisted the urge to rub her temples. “Got it. Go on.”
“So this magic,” Regina continued, “comes from a realm that borders on the world behind the mirrors.”
“Whoa, what? The world behind—”
“If you’re just going to interrupt me with inane questions every three words, Mrs Jones, we’ll never get anywhere,” Regina snapped.
“Sorry.”
“Yes,” continued Regina, still with a snap in her tone, “the world behind mirrors. All realms have mirrors of course, but only a few actually border this land, a land that can be accessed only by using very particular magic. However, from those few realms and with this magic it is possible—though exceptionally difficult—to transfer things through a mirror, into the mirror realm and store them there.”
“Store them—behind the mirrors?”
“Yes. Behind the mirrors.”
Emma opened her mouth then closed it again.
“So,” said Regina, “what I believe is that Zelena must have caught the curse magic as it moved from here to the Enchanted Forest, funnelled it into the mirror realm and kept it there until she was ready to modify it to suit her needs. Then when everything was set she sent it back through the Enchanted Forest and into this realm, along with all of us.”
“That’s… well, it’s... wow.”
“Yeah,” Regina agreed. “But she almost certainly wouldn’t have been able to catch the whole curse in the short time she had, and by moving it in and out of the mirrors she would have had to bend it, twist it into a different shape, then probably patch together any missing parts with her magic and Oz magic. Meaning this curse is a—a chimaera. A hybrid. Cobbled together from half a dozen different magics and the influences of different realms.”
“Well that would kinda explain why the version of Storybrooke it produced is so weird,” said Emma. “And also why the magic here was completely under Zelena’s control.”
“And why that magic is so unstable now.” Regina nodded. “Exactly. The only thing I can’t figure out is how she got it here. This curse wouldn’t be able to open a portal like a true Dark Curse, she’d need to have the portal already prepared. Several portals, actually. One to get the curse magic from the Enchanted Forest and into Oz or wherever and another to get it back there when she was ready to cast it. And then another to send it back into this realm. So how the hell did she manage all of that?”
Emma began to pace the small office as her thoughts churned in her mind. “I might have an idea,” she said. “But I need more information to be sure.” She stopped pacing and paused for a second, then spun around and faced the other woman with a determined look. “Regina, how would you like to visit New York?”
~
Henry’s second stop of the day was the market, where he bought a candy bar and a magazine and dawdled at the register as Belle rang them up, her movements thoughtless and mechanical, her expression blank.
“So how did you like the book?” he asked casually.
“Oh!” Belle’s dull eyes lit up. “It was wonderful, thank you! Do you, um, want it back?” She looked devastated at the prospect, and Henry hid a grin.
“Oh no, it’s for you,” he said. “I found it in the pawn shop. I saw it and I just somehow knew you’d love it.”
“The pawn shop?” Belle frowned. “I thought that was closed?”
“It’s opening again soon,” said Henry. “I’m helping out the guy who’s opening it, and he let me have the book for nothing when I said I wanted it for a present.”
“Oh. Well, in that case I’ll just say thank you,” said Belle. “Truly. I never would have thought I’d enjoy a book called Her Handsome Hero, but I really loved it. It was so romantic and heroic, and I just—I felt like I was there, you know. Living the adventure.” She dropped her eyes and gave a little shrug. “That probably sounds stupid.”
“No, it doesn’t!” exclaimed Henry. “I feel that way too, every time I read a good book.”
“Do you read a lot, then?” asked Belle, and the yearning in her voice squeezed his heart.
“Yeah, all the time. My dad owns a bookstore.”
“He does?” Belle’s eyes were wide.
“Yep. He sells mostly specialist books right now but he’s thinking about expanding, and hiring an assistant. Do you think you might be interested in that? You know, if you were looking for a different job?”
“I—” Belle blinked in confusion, the idea of a different job clearly one that had never crossed her mind before. Then her face broke into a radiant smile. “Working with books,” she breathed in awe. “I’d like that, I think. Very much.”
Henry grinned. “Here’s my dad’s address,” he said, handing her a cream-coloured card with “Jolly Roger Books” printed in old-fashioned lettering over the pale watermark of a pirate ship.
“Stop by any time,” he said. “Today even.”
“My shift ends at two,” said Belle faintly, staring at the card.
Henry nodded in satisfaction. “I’ll tell my dad to expect you then,” he said.
~
Emma took her time preparing herself for the trip. She was pretty sure she had enough magic stored up to poof herself and Regina to New York and back, but there was no way she could be completely certain. This was much, much farther than she’d ever transported herself before, and taking another person along made it even more risky. But the curse was weakening by the hour and as it did its magic grew increasingly unstable. Neither she nor Regina had any idea of what might happen once it broke. They needed to gather as much information as they could get before it did.
She sent a text to Killian advising him of her plan. The disapproval in his reply (Whatever you think is necessary, Swan) was practically tangible but she knew he wouldn’t try to stop her. He trusted her, and he trusted her magic. She needed to do the same.
She took a deep breath and drew on her magic, weaving it and wrapping it tightly around herself and Regina. When it was as secure as she could make it, she waved her hand and whisked them on a swirl of white smoke out of the sheriff’s station and into a cramped and dusty bookshop in Queens, where Frank McClelland was leaning against the register waiting for them with a warm and jovial smile that was only the tiniest bit terrifying.
“Hey there, Emma,” he said. He didn’t look surprised by her sudden appearance in his shop, but then he never did. “You’re lookin’ good. Memories all returned then?”
“Yep.” Emma was not about to be out-cooled by Frank. “All back.”
“Figured it wouldn’t take Hook long. He was what you might call highly motivated.” He chuckled at the weak joke then gave a little cough when neither woman joined him. Then he frowned. “I see the curse still isn’t broken.”
“No. It’s getting close, though and actually that’s why we’re here. This is—”
“Regina Mills, of course,” interrupted Frank, inclining his head at Regina. “Nice to meet ya, Your Majesty.”
Regina scowled and shot a glare at Emma, who shrugged a bit sheepishly. She probably should have given Regina some warning about what to expect from Frank. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” Regina replied coolly.
“Yes,” Frank agreed, still wearing his jovial smile but with a mocking sort of mischief in his voice and in the emerald glint of his eyes. “That I do.”
Emma barely tamped down the urge to kick him.
Regina’s eyes flashed dangerously and Emma realised she was going to have to do something before battle lines could be drawn. She stepped in front of Regina, putting her hand on the other woman’s arm and facing Frank with her body angled like a shield between them. “We’re here because we need some information, Frank,” she said. “Is that going to be a problem?”
The mockery faded from Frank’s eyes and his face grew solemn. “No,” he said. “The knowledge you seek shall be yours, freely given, as the final payment on my debt to your husband. Will you sit?”
He gestured to the back of the shop where the armchairs and small table sat. There were three chairs now, Emma noted, in place of the usual two. Because of course there were.
“I don’t like this,” Regina hissed. Emma squeezed her arm in what she hoped was reassurance.
“Trust me,” she said. “Trust me when I say that despite how this looks you can trust him.”
“Please allow me to beg your pardon, Regina Mills,” said Frank, looking genuinely apologetic. “It was unfit of me to taunt you, as of course any friend of Emma’s is more than welcome here” He opened his arms and held them out wide. “So as a gesture of good faith and because you are a woman who sets great store by appearances,” he said, “I trust you with the truth of my own.” A faint emerald glow flared and shimmered around him, and when it faded away Frank McClelland was gone and before them stood the Oisín of legend, tall and lithe, with ancient wisdom shining in his unlined face. “I hope this will make you more at ease with trusting me.”
Regina gave him a calculating look which he returned unwaveringly, and then with a flick of her wrist she removed the glamour spell on her face. Emma blinked in surprise. It had been an impressively subtle spell, so much that she herself had hardly noticed it. She looked closely at Regina. De-glamoured, the other woman looked far better than she had before Zelena’s capture—a month of sleeping soundly through the night will work wonders—but faint shadows still persisted beneath her eyes and deep wrinkles creased the skin of her forehead and around her mouth.
“Yes,” said Oisín, in a voice gentle with empathy and redolent with music, the flat vowels and clipped delivery of his alter ego nowhere to be heard. “You have suffered greatly at your sister’s hand.” He laid his own hand on Regina’s shoulder and the tension seemed to ease from her, the wrinkles on her face smoothing nearly away. “Some of these effects are permanent, beyond even my power to repair, but you needn’t let them trouble you. Your love does not see them. He sees you.”
Regina drew in a sharp breath as something soft and yearning flared in her eyes. “He does?” she whispered.
“He does. Now, will you sit?”
She did, settling herself into one of the armchairs with regal grace. Emma followed, taking the second chair somewhat less gracefully, and Oisín took the remaining one, last and most gracefully of all.
“We—” Emma began, but Regina interrupted her.
“May I ask you a question,” she said to Oisín.
“You may ask me anything you like and I will reply truthfully,” he replied. “Provided that I know the answer.”
“You’ll know this one,” said Regina.
“Then ask it.”
“What is your debt to Hook?” Regina gave Oisín a hard look. “The one that’s apparently your motivation for helping us.”
Oisín smiled. “Is your trust so fragile, then?” he asked.
“I simply wish to know what I’m dealing with,” she replied coolly.
“Very wise.” Oisín nodded in approval. “If all mortals displayed your caution my kind would be quite out of business. The debt is for a great service Hook once did me, long ago.”
“Oh? And what service was that?”
“He saved my beloved from a dreadful fate,” said Oisín, solemnly. “That my Niamh survives today is due solely to the bravery of Killian Jones. In recompense for which I agreed to bring him safely out of Neverland, with no obligation to Pan or any other creature who inhabited that place.”
“But you didn’t do that,” said Regina, comprehension lighting her eyes. “You left him there.”
“I did. To my great shame I betrayed my friend and my honour, and yet I cannot regret the choice. I acted as I had to act, and by doing so I added considerably to the weight of my debt. Despite this, I now believe my obligation to Hook is very nearly fulfilled.” He smiled at Emma. “Ensuring him a future with his love, as he did for me and mine, seems a fair payment, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I would,” said Emma.
“And does that ease your mind, Ms Mills?”
“It does.”
“I am pleased to hear it.”
“But that’s not the reason we’re here,” said Emma. “Your debt to Killian, I mean.”
“No indeed,” Oisín replied, leaning back in his chair, quite at his ease. “You came to inquire about the subtle knife.”
Set in Los Simuladores. Prompt: “You put eggnog on your cereal?”
—
“You put eggnog on your cereal? At midnight?” Ella grabbed the carton next to Mary Margaret’s elbow and sniffed at it. “It’s not even alcoholic.”
Mary Margaret huffed. “I know.” She glared at the spoon in her hand but stuck it in her mouth anyway. “It’s awful,” she mumbled, disregarding social conventions about chewing first, confident that her sister-in-law wouldn’t mind. “But so goooooood.”
Shaking her head, Ella leaned against one of the kitchen counters. The drawer closest to her produced a long, thin cigarette and a lighter; but she had just clicked it when she gave another glance toward Mary Margaret and rolled her eyes. “You’re so pregnant.”
Mary Margaret’s gaze shot up. “No, I’m not.”
“Please.” Cigarette and lighter disappeared into their hiding place. “You invite James and me over for a Christmas weekend, and you aren’t very fond of either of us.” She put a finger up when Mary Margaret would have denied that as well. “Hey, it’s all right. You’re nice to us, we’re nice to you. It works.”
“You’re not that nice.”
Ella grinned. “Exactly! Yet here we are, all stuck together because someone - that means, you - is pulling their family together. Nesting. Probably measuring the two of us for godparent material - which thank you, but no. I’d rather be the cool aunt, and James would drop the baby into the baptismal water, or swear in front of the priest. You don’t want us.”
“I’m not—”
“And you’re eating disgusting combinations with so much relish I must assume you’re not alone at the wheel anymore.” Ella pushed herself off and pulled a chair across the table from Mary Margaret. “So, my dear. Why the secrecy?”
There was a long beat of silence, which Ella broke impatiently after Mary Margaret took another mouthful of seasoned milk, raw eggs, and cheap cereal. “It is David’s, right?”
“Of course!”
Ella grinned. Shock often served to shake truths loose. “See, you are pregnant. Why aren’t you and David knitting booties or signing up for Lamaze classes or painting the nursery with singing bluebirds?”
Mary Margaret looked wistful. “I…”
“You haven’t told David?” Ella shook her head. “I support keeping some secrets from a husband - James certainly appreciates that. But this?”
“I’m not… I’m just…” Mary Margaret sighed. “Waiting.”
“For the baby to come home?” Ella lowered her voice. “Darling, even David is certain to notice before it comes to that.”
“No! Yes?” She took a deep breath. “I just want to make sure…. Look. None of you met my parents, but they loved children. Adored them. They would have raised a full house, had they been able to.”
Ella hid a wince. Whether at the idea of such a large brood, or where Mary Margaret’s tale was heading, she didn’t know.
Probably both.
“Even after I was finally born, Mom’s health was never the same. All it took was the smallest push, and she was gone.”
Ella had risen above her parents’ weakness and left them in the dust as soon as she was old enough. Though it earned a hurt look, she scoffed at Mary Margaret. “Stop being silly. You’re not your mother.”
“I know! But—”
“Even if you have the same troubles, it’s been decades. There’ll be something to make it better. Just ask Doc-” she paused, remembering too late that David had met Mary Margaret as one of Viktor’s cast offs. “Okay. Maybe not the lech. But my point stands.”
Mary Margaret gave a tiny smile. “Viktor is a better doctor than he was a boyfriend.”
“Oh, darling. That was your mistake. Doc has never been a boyfriend in his life.” Ella laughed. “Now, trash that soggy mess and go make James’s baby brother the happiest man alive. Be disgustingly ecstatic and have a perfect Christmas; we’ll watch.”
Mary Margaret laughed, less tense now that she’d shared her burden. “We’re not that bad.”
“You’re sickening, the two of you.” Ella shrugged her shoulders. “It’s okay. It made guessing there’d be a honeymoon baby real easy, and now half a dozen skeptics owe me money.”
“You bet on it?”
Far from scandalized, Mary Margaret sounded amused, so Ella smirked and tossed her hair back. “We’re also betting on whether Beauty will propose to our local Beast, or she’ll be patient enough to wait for Gold to do it. Want in?”
